Nobody watches the New Orleans Pelicans. No one knows this better than one of the Pelicans' true faithful followers. This past season, even the most dedicated fan couldn't be blamed for missing some of the games.
Not only did New Orleans do a lot of losing en route to a 21-61 finish, but they had many of their key pieces miss huge chunks of the campaign. Only two players wound up playing more than 56 games: Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Yves Missi.
Between their horrible record and the lack of talent they had on the court on a night-to-night basis, fans couldn't be blamed for tuning out on the Pelicans, especially those who aren't directly following New Orleans. However, the media has a different responsibility to be fully engaged. After all, they're paid to watch the games and follow the storylines. It appears that some of the NBA award voters weren't paying close enough attention to the Pelicans this season, though, as Yves Missi was badly snubbed.
Yves Missi should have received some votes for rookie of the year
This entire season, the narrative was spun that this was a weak rookie class. There weren't any standout stars like Victor Wembanyama, Paolo Banchero, or Cade Cunningham. However, there were quite a few freshmen who stepped up big time for their respective teams this past year.
Yves Missi was indisputably among the top performers in his class. Across all rookies, he was ninth in total points with 665, fifth in field-goal percentage at 54.7 percent (among players with at least 50 games played), first in rebounding with 601, 12th in assists with 99, 16th in steals with 37, and third in blocks with 98. With those numbers, it's safe to say that he was comfortably one of the most productive freshmen this past season.
Despite all of that, Missi failed to garner a single vote for Rookie of the Year. Stephon Castle of the San Antonio Spurs ran away with the award, followed by the Atlanta Hawks' number-one pick Zaccharie Risacher at second, and the Memphis Grizzlies' Jaylen Wells came in at a distant third. Alex Sarr, Zach Edey, Kel'el Ware, Matas Buzelis, and Jared McCain were the only other players to receive votes.
For comparison, Missi had more total points, assists, rebounds, and blocks than Kel'el Ware. On a per-game basis, he still beat out Ware in every single one of those categories except points, where Missi fell just shy, 9.1 to 9.3. Ware got four third-place votes.
That's not even close to the worst part. Jared McCain, who was having an excellent season before he went down with a season-ending meniscus tear, played in only 23 games this year. Rookie of the Year might not be one of the awards that requires players to appear in 65 games, but, it probably shouldn't go to someone who played in just over a quarter of the season. Clearly, Yves Missi was overlooked in the ROTY voting, but, hopefully, they'll make it up to him with the All-Rookie selections.