NEW ORLEANS – On paper, Baylor’s Yves Missi couldn’t be a better fit for the New Orleans Pelicans’ needs this offseason.
With Jonas Valančiūnas entering unrestricted free agency this summer, the Pelicans needed size and strength in the frontcourt. Missi provides those qualities in a 6-foot-11, 229-pound frame. But the Pelicans were looking for more than just another big body to add to the mix. They had to pursue a different look at the center position: More youth, more athleticism and more of an intimidating presence around the rim.
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At 19, Missi, a native of Cameroon who didn’t start playing basketball until he was 16, already has those qualities. Taking him with the No. 21 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft was a no-brainer once he fell.
“The things that he did in our building – physically and athletically – we’ve never had a player his size do anything even remotely alike,” said David Griffin, the Pelicans’ executive vice president of basketball operations.
It was hard for Pelicans front office members to avoid expressing their enthusiasm for some of Missi’s qualities. He plays above the rim more than any big drafted in Wednesday’s first round. He’s a force on the offensive glass and has a decent touch around the basket. He has the agility and instincts to play many defensive schemes, a trait Pelicans coach Willie Green regularly emphasizes when discussing his bigs.
“The defensive versatility of (Missi) is something we were really excited about. He’s not just a rim protector. He has the ability to be a multiple-coverage big,” Griffin said. “When you look at an athlete with his size and the way he tested for us here. The things he’s capable of physically are very rare.”
However, none of that means Missi will take over as the team’s new starting center from day one. All signs point to that being unlikely. Newly promoted general manager Bryson Graham admitted Missi is still “developmental” and it’ll take time for him to adjust to the speed and physicality of the NBA. In his only season at Baylor, Missi averaged 10.7 points and 5.6 rebounds while playing just 22.9 minutes per game. Those are impressive per-minute numbers for someone with only a few years of playing experience, but his time on the court during his freshman season was limited for a reason. He still needs to master the fundamentals required to defend consistently without fouling.
This is where the pressure attached to this selection shifts from Missi himself to the Pelicans’ coaching staff. To help fulfill Missi’s promise and give Zion Williamson the long-term frontcourt partner he needs, the Pelicans will need to do something they have yet to accomplish.
The Pelicans have consistently developed lesser-known perimeter players into critical contributors. The success of Trey Murphy, Herb Jones, Jose Alvarado and Naji Marshall — one mid-first-round pick, one second-round pick and two undrafted signings — has been one of the crowning achievements of Griffin’s five-year tenure. Now, the Pelicans must apply that developmental aptitude to a center who does all of his damage around the basket.
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The Pelicans have been down this road before. In 2019, they used the eighth pick on Jaxson Hayes, a 19-year-old athletic big man from Texas. Ultimately, that experiment was a disaster; Hayes left the team in 2023 after four inconsistent seasons and has yet to live up to his status as a former top-10 pick.
Missi comes in with many of the same traits that made Hayes attractive to Griffin and his front office five years ago. Much like Hayes, Missi is a high-flyer with limited offensive game and a lack of experience in high-leverage moments. However, the Pelicans’ front office strongly believes in the instincts Missi has shown early in his career and his drive to improve.
“He picks up things really, really quickly. With his intelligence and his raw, natural ability, it’s exciting,” Graham said. “We’re excited he fell to 21.”
During the predraft process, Missi was often compared to current Atlanta Hawks center Clint Capela. While it would be a big win for the Pelicans if Missi turned into that type of player, Capela didn’t average more than 20 minutes per game until his third season in the NBA. Missi following a similar trajectory would be more than understandable, but the Pelicans could also use quality minutes at the center position now.
“If you look at where he was and how long he’s been playing the game, he’s made an incredibly meteoric rise,” Griffin said. “I don’t think you go from Prolific Prep to thinking you’re redshirting at Baylor to playing in the playoffs very often. It would be silly to say, ‘Oh yeah, he’s going to do that (in Year One).’ But he has the physical tools to play in those games.”
How many minutes Missi plays, and how quickly, will depend on his work to become an effective offensive complement to Williamson. Understanding where to be on the floor and how to remain a threat is an even bigger priority in New Orleans than elsewhere considering the attention Zion regularly demands from opposing defenses. Valančiūnas has been reliable during his time with the Pelicans, but his likely exit this summer is in part motivated by opponents that would deliberately ignore him to place more bodies in Zion’s path.
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Missi must learn to punish defenses that will inevitably do the same to him. Graham highlighted Missi’s feel for playing along the baseline and even compared the Baylor product to Dallas’ Dereck Lively II, who is coming off a promising rookie season with the Dallas Mavericks.
“It’s (Missi’s) ability to really get out of the way. He has such a good feel for finding space. He’s able to set screens and play in the dunker (spot),” Graham said. “It’s a lot like a Dereck Lively-type. I think his feel for the game is very advanced. (Having) somebody like that next to (Williamson), it’s going to unlock him.”
The Pelicans’ front office is aware the team is still far from having the right answer for next season’s starter. There’s no way the Pelicans can keep up with the likes of Nikola Jokić, Chet Holmgren, Anthony Davis and Victor Wembanyama without someone they can trust to play 30-plus minutes this season. Finding that player will almost certainly require the Pelicans to jump into the trade waters to acquire a veteran big, as they did in recent years in acquiring Derrick Favors, Steven Adams and Valančiūnas. Perhaps that veteran is someone like Milwaukee’s Brook Lopez or Cleveland’s Jarrett Allen. Maybe it’s even Capela himself.
“We didn’t come into this offseason believing the way we’re going to get better in the frontcourt was entirely around (Missi),” Griffin said. “I think we’re going to be fairly aggressive. I think we’re going to continue to do that throughout the offseason.”
Still, securing a potential long-term answer at the five in Missi could be a game-changer as the Pelicans plan out the future of this roster. The task of shaping the 2024 draft pick into a suitable frontcourt partner next to Zion for years to come will be one of the most important projects this franchise has undertaken.
(Top photo: Jay Biggerstaff / Getty Images)
