Welcome to the Pelicans: Yves Missi

[Pelicanidae]

With the 21st pick in the #NBADraft, the Pelicans select Yves Missi!#PelicansDraft | @BaylorMBB pic.twitter.com/5UmPlqlk4F

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) June 27, 2024

Pelicans ended up keeping the 21st pick and used it to select Yves Missi (6'11, 7'2 wingspan, 235lbs).

Strengths:
- Great straight line speed
- Good simple decision maker; he will do the 'dunk or pass' thing very competently
- Screens well and makes contact with both shoulders
- Great mobility; should be able to play NBA drop defense fairly quickly.
- Good recovery skills - see the above drop comment.
- Has flashed occasional face-up skills; there is room for improvement there

Areas of Improvement:
- Not great in terms of defensive positioning. Prone to getting himself caught out of position and having to rely on his recovery too often.
- Very elementary processor; he's only played basketball for about 3 years and you can tell sometimes
- Completely limited to the rim; no finesse work, no stretch potential thus far. Rim runner at its purest.

Seen some people say he's a Clint Capela type - that's probably fair. You could also potentially say a young Serge Ibaka, in some ways, wouldn't be too far off.

Wish him all the best and welcome to the team.

Yves Missi: Only 5 people in the history of Cameroon have gone to the NBA. To be able to count me as one of them is crazy. It's now 6 out of 30 million people, just insane pic.twitter.com/35bupZmmbN

— Pelicans Film Room (@PelsFilmRoom) June 27, 2024

[markid]

May he do his best.
Said that about Jax
Said that about Kira
I say that to him now.

[13 - 3]

I mean pic.twitter.com/dlNng0tlmI

— Shamit Dua (@FearTheBrown) June 27, 2024

[Pelicanidae]

May he do his best.
Said that about Jax
Said that about Kira
I say that to him now.

Absolutely. I have preferences but once someone is actually on the Pels my thoughts always become the same: I hope I'm wrong about any doubts, and wish them luck.

[JJackisangry]

I would have liked this pick more in a different draft. I think it’s a “good” pick. I’m always worried that these guys don’t hit their stride until the contract ends. Hopefully Missi is a quick learner.

[Pelicanidae]

I would have liked this pick more in a different draft. I think it’s a “good” pick. I’m always worried that these guys don’t hit their stride until the contract ends. Hopefully Missi is a quick learner.

I think Missi's timeline could be vastly accelerated if we had a guard who could reliably throw lob passes and run a PnR with a shooting threat. So, y'know. There's that. Griff.

[JJackisangry]

I think Missi's timeline could be vastly accelerated if we had a guard who could reliably throw lob passes and run a PnR with a shooting threat. So, y'know. There's that. Griff.

Sounds about right. A reliable point should be the priority now.

[msusousaphone]

I mean pic.twitter.com/dlNng0tlmI

? Shamit Dua (@FearTheBrown) June 27, 2024

Yes. But one had presumably been playing basketball his entire life while the other only three years. Jax was also pick 12.

Y'all need to get away from NOLA Pels media. It is nothing but negativity.

It was pick 21 in a weak draft. We weren't going to get a day one starter.

[Pelicanidae]

Yes. But one had presumably been playing basketball his entire life while the other only three years.

Y'all need to get away from NOLA Pels media. It is nothing but negativity.

It's worth noting that Shamit has been otherwise fairly positive about the Missi pick.

[Pelicanidae]

Bryson Graham says he went to Baylor in October and Yves really stood out. Said he's been really impressed by the progression since then.

— Shamit Dua (@FearTheBrown) June 27, 2024

Griff says they were excited about the defensive versality of Yves. Said he is a multiple coverage big.

— Shamit Dua (@FearTheBrown) June 27, 2024

I think Missi certainly has the mobility to be a multiple coverage big (though I don't think he's going to be one of those unicorns who can switch anything) but I don't see that being the case for a little while. Maybe he's further along than he showed at Baylor, though. Could be the case.

[Pelicanidae]

Bryson Graham namedrops Lively in the presser; says Missi's feel is ''very advanced'' and that he has ''good touch''.

''I don't want to sit here and say he's going to be a pick and pop big but his mechanics are there and over time I can see his ability to grow as a three point shooter as well. He's got so much potential as a player, so we're excited that he fell to 21 and he's with us.''

Shamit asks about the need of accelerating the development of bigs with guard play.

Griff says: ''In general terms we've talked about needing to get better and we're going to be aggressive. We didn't come in thinking that the way were going to get better in the frontcourt was around Yves or around the Sidelines. We're going to be fairly aggressive and continue to do that throughout the offseason. It's interesting, everybody thinks things have to be done by the draft or July 6th. Your roster's not set until training camp, and even then it's not, and we're going to look to cash in on the right people at the right time.''

Asked about BI, Griff says he ''wouldn't get into that right now.'' He does note that ''Brandon wants to stay here but there is a financial reality that we all deal with, we're excited about Brandon and he's excited about us and those usually yield good results.''

[Pelicanidae]

Griff says Willie Green is particularly excited about Yves.

[DroopyDawg]

[DroopyDawg]

[Mount_Zion]

Very good defensive prospect, his offensive fit with Zion is questionable

If they plan to start him next to Zion, they need shooters next to him and Zion

[JJackisangry]

When it’s all said and done, I am excited about him. From what I’ve heard he seems a bit more trainable than Jax and he seems to be learning. Jax showed a bit of promise then plateaued fairly hard. We need Missi to become a legit player at some point. Good luck to him.

[Pelicanidae]

Very good defensive prospect, his offensive fit with Zion is questionable

If they plan to start him next to Zion, they need shooters next to him and Zion

Well, they're not going to start him. If we end up starting a rookie next season then that's a horrible, horrible sign that things have gone badly wrong during the offseason.

But in terms of potentially playing them together, I agree that shooters are needed - but not really for Zion. Zion himself has proven time and again that he can make offense happen, efficiently, next to non-shooting bigs. He did it with Steven Adams, he did it with Jonas, he's done it with Cody Zeller, he even managed it somehow a bit with Jaxson Hayes.

No, the people who need shooting to benefit from a non-shooting big are just everyone else. There's no space for anyone else to cut or dive or roll if there's a non-shooting big, their only contributions to a drive can be catch and shoot or catch and pass. If they can't shoot, they're just not playable if there's a non-shooting big on the floor.

If the big can shoot, that changes a little.

[Pelicanidae]

Bayou Yves ⭐️ pic.twitter.com/XEP9P05UiY

— New Orleans Pelicans (@PelicansNBA) June 27, 2024

I think one big thing that Yves has going for him is that the body is already reasonably there. Of course any 19 year old still has some growing to do, but like Lively from last year, he's not walking into his rookie season as an absolute twig. 235lbs is a reasonable weight.

[RaisingTheBar]

Yes. But one had presumably been playing basketball his entire life while the other only three years. Jax was also pick 12.

Y'all need to get away from NOLA Pels media. It is nothing but negativity.

It was pick 21 in a weak draft. We weren't going to get a day one starter.

Ignore anything and everything Shamit says. That’s good advice.
Missi is stronger and has way better touch around the rim than Hayes.

[smcgull]

May he do his best.
Said that about Jax
Said that about Kira
I say that to him now.

That is what we should all hope for any player on the Pelicans.

[Pelicanidae]

Ignore anything and everything Shamit says. That’s good advice.
Missi is stronger and has way better touch around the rim than Hayes.

I don't necessarily think you can judge Missi's touch given that almost every point he scored came off a straight up dunk. It's not like he was taking hook shots, floaters, off-handed layups, and finger rolls.

[ml wave]

I don't necessarily think you can judge Missi's touch given that almost every point he scored came off a straight up dunk. It's not like he was taking hook shots, floaters, off-handed layups, and finger rolls.

If anything, the absence of making any other shot can be seen as indicative of a lack of touch.