A day removed from the New Orleans Pelicans stressing me out, and wow, I have to say Wednesday night's game against the Indiana Pacers was a fun watch. Now, I already apologized to Dejounte Murray following the season-opening loss, and I feel like at minimum, I need to acknowledge the way both Derik Queen and Yves Missi played.
Following the preseason, I was pretty harsh on both of the Pelicans' young big men, and I still think that was fair. For every positive either player showed, they also showed three negatives. However, after that game, I’m starting to think the whole “it’s just preseason” thing is real because they were ready to play against Indy.
Yves Missi was trolling in preseason
From the opening tip, Yves Missi brought an insane amount of energy and had me writing in my notes, “Was Yves Missi trolling this preseason?” He started the game with a massive putback dunk, and from that point forward he was incredible on both ends of the floor. Missi finished with 13 points, 14 rebounds (split evenly between the offensive and defensive glass), five assists, three blocks, and two steals while shooting 5-of-6 from the field in 29 minutes.
Those are insane numbers for a player who looked lost on both ends of the floor as much as he did in preseason. His athleticism really shone in this one. Even with the Pacers having a force at the five in Ivica Zubac, he found openings to use his youthfulness and be opportunistic against the slower Croatian big. Offensively, he hovered in the dunker spot, eating up second-chance points and finishing plays as a lob threat. The other thing that was nice too was that when he pulled in offensive rebounds, he looked back out to the perimeter first before deciding to go up with it himself.
Defensively, he protected the rim well and closed out possessions by boxing out hard. But what really stood out was how poised and comfortable he looked rotating between assignments in ball-screen actions. Obviously, when you have a big like Zu, you want to get him in actions where he’s rolling to the rim, and Missi did a good job shutting the door on a ton of those.
Overall, it's really encouraging stuff from him, and even though it’s just one game, fans can feel better about that starting center spot after how he handled that matchup with Indy.
Is that a Derik Queen imposter?
Oh, Derik Queen, do y'all think he heard my criticism about buying into a role? It may be delusional, but I actually think he may have. During preseason, I went at DQ and questioned where he fit in on this team because he didn’t show the discipline needed to buy into a smaller role with this group. Against the Pacers, he did exactly that.
In 18 minutes, he finished with 10 points, 10 rebounds, one assist, and two steals. More important than those counting stats was the fact that he only turned it over once and took just four shots, shooting 3-of-4 from the field. That isn’t the Derik Queen we saw for 81 games last season or four preseason games earlier this month. I was seriously shocked by his play.
Queen didn’t dribble the air out of the ball, force passes, or try to be flashy. Instead, he played like a traditional big, scoring on the inside and crashing the boards. I was super impressed.
Defensively, he actually stood out as one of the players who was giving it his all on that end all game. He was sliding his feet well on the perimeter, not overcommitting and staying disciplined. I’m not sure if everything DQ did defensively can be chalked up to the Jamahl Mosley effect. But I will say, through all the Derik Queen games I’ve watched, going back as far as college, I can’t remember ever seeing him that aware defensively.
Now, out of Queen and Missi, the player who is probably more likely to go back to being who they were last season or in preseason is Queen.
That’s not a shot at him or anything, but as a second-year player with a unique playstyle, it’s going to be hard to break bad habits and fully buy into a different role. But if this team's focus is winning games, the biggest thing for him is keeping those turnovers down and not trying to dominate the ball, which he did. If he keeps those two boxes checked, this could be a step in the right direction toward Derik Queen becoming an impactful, winning piece this year.
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