Block the best rookie center, against lottery new stars!

Does Yang Hansen have the qualification to start the regular season? After the third game of the Summer League, the problem was successfully concluded. Yang Hansen filled the data bar with 15 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 hats and 1 break. If you understand the two inside players of the opposite Pelicans, you can better understand the value of Hansen's "answer sheet".

The center forward against Yang Hansen is Yves Missy, who is the 21st pick in 2024. He played 73 games last season, started 67 games, averaged 9.1 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.3 hats per game, and was awarded the second team of the All-Rookie Team. He is by no means an ordinary person. Especially, he has outstanding board grabbing ability, with 601 rebounds in the season, ranking first among rookies; among them, he grabbed 255 frontcourt rebounds, ranking 7th in the league, with top centers such as Zubac, Sabonis, and Gobert. Missy has also become the first rookie to grab 250+ frontcourt rebounds since No. 1 pick Griffin in the 10-11 season. The Pelicans have regarded him as a non-sale product for the team.

Time is back to the 2024 offseason. The Pelicans' main center Valanciunas' contract expired and he transferred to the Wizards for 3 years and 30 million yuan; at the same time, in order to get defender Dezhangtai Murray, the Pelicans sent away center Nance Jr. and Cody Zeller in the trade with the Hawks. The team's interior is in an extremely vacuum, so they can't wait to take down center Yves Missy from Baylor University.

Given that the center position is a rookie, the Pelicans originally planned to be the main player with five small teams without traditional centers, but suddenly encountered injuries at the beginning of the season, with at least 6 core members absent. For example, he just got new player Murray, but suffered a left hand fracture in the opening game of the season; No. 1 pick Zion played only 6 games and was on the verge of indefinitely due to a hamstring injury; this made the Pelicans give up the five small lineups and directly promoted Misie to the starting center position after 6 games. In December last year, Missy faced top inside players such as Vinbanyama, Sabonis, Turner, Shinkyung, Towns and Jokic, averaging 12.5 points and 11.2 rebounds per game, with a shooting percentage of 57.7%, winning the Western Conference Rookie of the month.

After a season of training, Missy is already the best among rookies, why should she send him to the summer league? There are two reasons: one is to develop Missy's offensive ability. He started to get involved in basketball at the age of 14. He relied on his outstanding physical fitness and entered the NBA for only six years of systematic training. He is a cake-type insider and his independent attacking skills are extremely bad. This explains why when he attacked Yang Hansen independently in this game, he made only 1 of 11 shots (that one hit was not Hansen's defense). The second point is the experimental lineup. The Pelicans are ready to rebuild and have won three more rookies in the draft last month, so they want to let Missy establish a chemistry with them in advance, especially to form a double tower lineup with Derek Quinn.

Quin is the second center against Hansen Yang. He is the 13th overall pick this year, 3 places higher than Hansen. He averaged 14 points, 11 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game in three summer league games. Moreover, he is not a traditional inside line, and can control, project, and organize and support him. Therefore, when Yang Hansen defended him, it was difficult for him to keep up, and the latter scored 7 points in a row. The Trail Blazers had to use the misaligned defense strategy to let Henson face other forwards and temporarily avoid his edge.

However, Quinn is the opposite of Missy's characteristics, which is strong offense and weak defense. Hansen also grasped his weakness, took two three-pointers, an all-received dunk from him, and a hook-in-handed hand. It was considered a comeback and back.

Single defense completely limits NBA regular season starting center Misey, whose offensive firepower is not inferior to Lotto star Quinn. Even though he still has the defect of poor rebound protection, looking at Billups who are happy on the sidelines, I believe that Yang Hansen has won the trust of the coach.