Welcome to the Pelicans: Yves Missi

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