Yves Missi

Yves Missi is a Cameroonian professional basketball center for the New Orleans Pelicans. Born in the Brussels metropolitan area and raised in Cameroon, he came to the sport late and turned one college season at Baylor into the 21st pick of the 2024 NBA draft.

Two years in, he is already a full-time starter in New Orleans. Missi made the All-Rookie Second Team in 2024-25 and finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting, then moved into a bigger role in 2025-26, where he averaged 9.2 points and 8.4 rebounds across 67 appearances as a starter. At 6'11" and 235 pounds, he plays a rim-protecting, above-the-rim game that fits what the modern Pelicans want in the middle.

He also suits up for the Cameroon national team, which makes him part of a small but growing group of Cameroonian first-round picks. Fans searching his name most often want two things: how tall he is, and when he will be back from the left knee bone bruise he picked up against Utah in October 2026. [edit]

Missi was born in the Brussels metropolitan area, but his basketball life belongs to Cameroon. His parents are Cameroonian, and he grew up there, which is why he represents the country internationally despite the Belgian birth certificate.

He found basketball later than most NBA prospects. There was no AAU circuit childhood, no highlight reel at fourteen. The sport came to him as a teenager, and the growth that followed is the reason scouts eventually found him at all.

The move to the United States happened in his teens, and it came with a detour: a prep year in Florida before college recruiters could properly evaluate him. That year mattered. It got him on American courts, in front of coaches, and into the recruiting conversation at a point when most of his future peers had already been ranked for years.

Baylor took the chance. In Waco he started 32 of 35 games as a freshman and averaged 10.7 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.5 blocks while shooting 61.4 percent from the field. The 1.5 blocks per game ranked fourth in the Big 12, which is a striking number for a player who had only recently learned the position. One season was enough. He declared for the 2024 draft, and the Pelicans took him 21st overall in June.

The route itself is the story people around the program still tell: Brussels to Cameroon to a Florida prep year to Waco to New Orleans, with a first-round grade waiting at the end of it. [edit]

New Orleans drafted Missi 21st overall in June 2024 into a frontcourt that needed bodies, and he did not wait long for minutes. His rookie year produced 68 games and 56 starts at 22.4 minutes a night, with 6.8 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.4 blocks. He finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting and landed on the NBA All-Rookie Second Team.

The second season brought a bigger job. Across 67 appearances in 2025-26 he averaged 9.2 points, 8.4 rebounds, 1.3 assists and 1.3 blocks in 27.3 minutes, the profile of a starter rather than a rotation piece. Fantasy writers started recommending him as a streaming option precisely because the minutes were real and the rebounding translated.

Internationally, he has played for Cameroon at the 2023 FIBA AfroBasket qualifiers, and his YouTube channel bio lists both the Pelicans and the Cameroon national team.

Then came October 23, 2026, against the Utah Jazz. Missi went down with a left leg injury and needed help to the locker room. Imaging the next day showed a bone bruise in the left knee, which meant he had avoided the major injury everyone feared. The team ruled him out against Denver with no timetable for a return, and reporting through October 26 described him as having avoided the worst-case scenario while still without a date. [edit]

Missi carries himself like a player who knows he arrived by an unusual road. There is no bluster in his media appearances, no viral persona. He answers questions about his knee the way a second-year pro should: briefly, without drama, deferring to the team's medical staff.

On the floor the image is built on defense. The blocked shot, the verticality at the rim, the rebounding that fantasy players noticed before casual fans did. His social media leans toward short clips and team content rather than lifestyle branding, and his YouTube bio is a single line of job description.

Among Pelicans followers he reads as a steady, unglamorous piece of the rebuild, the kind of center whose value shows up in the standings more than in highlight packages. [edit]

As of the October 2026 data, iFANN's Global Fame Engine has evaluated Missi but he does not currently hold a placement in the published rankings, whether the Global Top 1,000 or a regional scope list. He is also not on the September 2026 iFAMOUS Rankings flagship list. For a second-year center in a mid-market, that is an honest reflection of where the attention sits.

The audience around him has no formal name, and no organized fan campaigns or streaming pushes are documented. What exists instead is a practical, fantasy-league-driven following. Rotowire and CBS readers track his minutes and block totals; Pelicans forums argue about his role in the frontcourt rotation; injury updates from Hoops Rumors and the Associated Press get passed around within hours. His most-searched questions are the unglamorous ones: how tall is he, how old is he, what is his contract, when does he come back from the knee.

That is the shape of early-career basketball fame. Not a fandom with a banner, but a constituency of people who need to know whether he is starting tonight. [edit]

His surname trips up almost everyone. The accepted pronunciation is "EEV MEE-see," and broadcasters have needed correcting on it since draft night.

He was born in Belgium but plays internationally for Cameroon, a detail that confuses casual box-score readers who see the Brussels birthplace and assume European basketball.

Missi became the third Cameroonian player taken in the first round within a five-year span, part of a genuine pipeline rather than a one-off.

His career has moved fast in a literal sense: from a late start in the sport to a first-round pick in a handful of years, with only one college season in between.

Fans still retell the prep-year detour in Florida as the hinge moment. Without it, the Baylor offer likely never happens, and there is no 21st pick. [edit]

Missi's family is Cameroonian, and he grew up in Cameroon before moving to the United States as a teenager. His parents have stayed largely out of the public eye, and no names or professions have been widely reported.

He is not known to be married and has no children. Off the court he keeps a low profile, with his public presence running through Instagram, X and a YouTube channel where he describes himself simply as an NBA player for the Pelicans and the Cameroon national team. [edit]

Baylor University, the New Orleans Pelicans and the Cameroon national team. His draft class and Pelicans frontcourt teammates shape his day-to-day basketball world, and his international commitments tie him to Cameroon's AfroBasket push. [edit]

No public romantic relationships are documented for Missi in any available reporting. He has not been linked to a partner in the basketball press, has no engagement or marriage on record, and no children.

As of 2026, he is not known to be dating anyone publicly and appears to be single. His public life stays almost entirely inside basketball: Pelicans team content, national team duty with Cameroon, and injury updates. [edit]

Missi's money is straightforward by NBA standards. As the 21st pick in the 2024 draft he signed a standard rookie-scale contract, which for that slot runs four years with team options and a first-year salary in the range of roughly $3.1 million, escalating each season. That structure is why his contract is one of the most-searched questions about him: fans want the exact number, and it is set by the collective bargaining agreement rather than negotiated.

Beyond salary, his income comes from the usual young-player channels. A national team commitment to Cameroon does not pay like the NBA, and endorsement work at this stage is modest compared to what a top-five pick commands. No major brand portfolio or business venture has been publicly documented.

Research by the iFANN Editorial Team puts his current fortune at approximately $8 million, a figure that reflects two NBA seasons on the rookie scale, standard agent and tax deductions, and the absence of any large outside income. That number should climb sharply if he plays out the contract and reaches a second deal, which is the real financial fork in the road for a player drafted in his range. [edit]

Missi earned NBA All-Rookie Second Team honors for the 2024-25 season, the headline individual recognition of his young career. He also finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting that year. [edit]