David Griffin & Bryson Graham talk Pelicans Draft Pick Yves Missi | 2024 NBA Draft

David Griffin & Bryson Graham talk Pelicans Draft Pick Yves Missi | 2024 NBA Draft

um I guess it’s not quite as long with only the first round tonight so this will get you out of here a little earlier um obviously really excited uh to be in a position to improve our front Court in the in the way that we did I think the defensive versatility of Eve is something we were really excited about he’s not just a rim proteor protector he has the ability to be a multiple coverage big um he’s a player that we’re really excited about in terms of upside but also in terms of character the human being he is his intelligence as a human being his instincts and the speed at which he picks up new information is really exciting um he’s somebody that projected very very well for us um eyes ears and numbers is what you like to try to cover when you do these types of things and uh he checks all three boxes for us in many ways um there’ll be some things out there that’ll tell you that the numbers don’t check out and that’s it’s okay uh we’re comfortable with that um I think we’re uh we’re a group that really understands the human part of this a little bit relative to Eve and uh we’re just genuinely excited about it yeah that’s piggyback on what Griff said um when we when we were in the identifying stages of our draft process in October um I went to Baylor and EES really really stood out um there wasn’t a whole lot of information about him at the time he played in the Nike hoop Summit and um I wouldn’t say he’s just a guy but he showed a ton of potential and he really really progressed by the time I saw him again in October and the first thing I came back and I told Griff I was like this this kid is going to be a first round pick and um we need to make sure that we keep our eyes on him and so and he just kept getting better and better throughout the year um his like Griff said his defensive versatility um his ability to play in multiple coverages you see that a lot right now in the NBA um and you saw teams that are playing late in into the playoffs especially with Derrick Lively D Daniel Gafford Al Horford those guys can play up at the point of the screen stop the ball and get back and um that is huge it’s huge for how Willie wants to play as well then this kid is definitely um develop developmental hopefully his learning curve is is is short um he got to Baylor and everybody thought he was going to red shirt he actually thought he was going to red shirt and um that just goes to the point of what Griff said um he picks up things really really quickly and so with his intelligence and his just raw natural ability uh it’s it’s exciting and and we’re happy he uh he failed to 21 and obviously he you know the size and the tra you mentioned being excited about his upside what have you seen that kind of uh makes you feel pretty good about you know where he can be you know a couple years from now well some of what Bryson just said um the speed with which he picks things up are incredible but when you look at a an athlete with his size and the way he tested for us here um the things he’s capable of physically are very rare um and we’ve sat up here and said that before about players and it’s it’s true there are a lot of times you draft on tools um what’s exciting about Eve is we feel like the likelihood he reaches his ceiling is better um than a lot of those people because of what he’s shown already for his propensity to get better quickly but the things that he did in our building here physically and athletically we’ve never had a player his size do anything even remotely like so it’s it’s exciting for us just what was guys contact like with him uh in the pre-draft process and all that well that’s that’s a good question actually um we were really fortunate to get him to come in you know this was a strange year in the draft and we’ve talked to a lot of you about this this this was a draft that we thought was much deeper than it was topheavy and I think you’ve seen that play out tonight there were some players that were expecting to go much higher that are still on the board um this was a a different draft in its depth and so it was a struggle uh for Bryson and his group to even get him to come in and and when he did it it was a special it was a special meeting for for us us and for him and I know he and his family are excited about our situation um but it was a blessing to get him to come in at all absolutely absolutely sorry no you no you’re good first sorry about that um you’ve been kind of unapologetic about you mentioned his character about having people in the building and not wavering from that how important was that and how much did that weigh into this pick of this player Oh immeasurably um when you’ve got his work rate and his human character and his intelligence there’s there’s something on the end for you that’s going to be really special and that’s what we want in that building and we’ve talked about it a lot um we’ve got to have people that are committed to what we’re doing here and Eve is committed and that’s that’s meaningful to us you guys had a very successful season last uh last season you’re hoping to build upon that playoff aspirations um do you feel like he can fit in in a like a playoff Style ation out the gate or is it you you know are you projecting a longer term approach there I think it’s a little bit of both um physically he has the tools to play in that setting um those games we played he he belongs in physically um what’s going to take him some time is just the overall speed of the game if you look at where he was and how long he’s been playing the game um he’s made an incred incredibly meteoric rise uh I don’t think you go from prolific prep to thinking your red shirting at Baylor to playing in the playoffs in the NBA very often so it’d be silly to say oh yeah he’s going to do that but he has the physical tools that play in those games I ask you a question I you been here a long time you’ve seen a lot of different things now that you are the general manager this is technically your first pick does it make it any more special this is your first pick as the general manager no no it it doesn’t I mean um it’s it’s just a uh it’s just a title um I’m just fortunate um this is an unbelievable opportunity um and everybody that works here they play a part in it you know what I mean um every draft that I’ve been a part of is is extremely special um and I don’t care if I was the intern or if I sit right now in front of you as a general manager um working in the NBA is just it’s a blessing you know so um I’m trying not you know get emotional but it’s this this is um it’s a dream come true just be up here so thank you yeah you’ve been here a long long time where where the Pelicans now compared to previous iterations you you’ve seen in your time here um moving in the right direction I we just keep getting better and better every year um Griff has done a really good job um just giving us direction as an organization and at the same time letting us do our letting us do our jobs you know what I mean um that’s that’s super helpful and it’s uh it’s fun to be around and fun to be a part of and we got a really really good group and so just excited you know um we’re coming off of 49 win season you know um that that hasn’t you know that doesn’t happen often you know here in know in New Orleans and hasn’t happened much you know in my tenure but we’re moving in the right direction so it’s a lot to be excited about have you had a chance to just kind of reflect on this journey yet I mean have you met it out you know I I a little bit I think after summer league I I will there hasn’t been a ton of a ton of downtime you know um we’ve had a lot of turnover um you know in in the building you know with Tran obviously leaving and that was a you know kind of a big blow but um I think after after summer league he’ll be able to sit down and and really just kind of think back to exactly you know what I’m doing you know what I mean but um just very thankful and grateful you know we talked a lot last five years about fighting the right type of Center to put next to Z and you guys have G through a few different guys trying to find that what do you see in E that makes you s he can be a guy who can be successful next to Z um it’s it’s his ability to really get out of the way as well you know like um he has such a good feel for finding space um he’s able to set screens and play in the dunker um a lot like um you know a Derek Lively type you know um that I think his his feel for the game is is very Advanced and um and somebody like that next to next to Z can also um is going to unlock him he also has good touch I you know I don’t want to sit here and say that he’s going to be some pick and pop big but when he came into our gym um you know his shot mechanics are are um they’re there and I think with reps and rep you know and over time as he continues to develop I can see you know some you know his his ability to grow as a as a three-point shooter you know in this league as well so um he’s he’s a he’s a he’s got so much potential you know as a player and so we’re just excited that you know like I said he fell to 21 and that he’s with us um you don’t get a chance to address every single need all at once in one night uh but a lot of time the development of bigal like he uh is tied to guard play and and creation um what are your guys’s like thoughts philosophically on perhaps uh adding some of that to this roster this off season well I think in general terms we’ve talked about needing to get better and I think philosophically we’re going to be aggressive and we didn’t come into this off season believing the way we were going to get better in the front Court uh was entirely around Eve and I don’t think we came into this believing in the off season that the way we were going to get better was to be on the sidelines I I think we’re going to be fairly aggressive um and I I think we’re going to continue to do that throughout the offseason you know it’s interesting every every time these things happen and we’ve talked about this a lot everybody thinks things have to be done by the draft or they have to be done by July 6th your roster is not set until training camp starts and even then it’s not so I think we’re going to continue to look throughout all of that for opportunity and to try to cash in on the right people at the right time and so Eve is just one step in that is there any update you can give just about like Brandon poal extension or anything else right now no I wouldn’t get into that now could you do you communicate given obviously I know the NBA offseason is a crazy landscape and you’ve talked about that before with rumors flying do you have communication oh yeah very much um Brandon wants to stay here and he believes in what we’re building and that’s meaningful to us it’s meaningful to him I think it’s meaningful to his agent um and at the same time there there is a financial reality that that we all deal with so I think uh we’re excited about Brandon we know he’s excited about us and usually those things yield good results one way or the other and uh talk about G opportunity what are some of the things you saw in him that made you comfortable you in the position to move up up to the general manager well obviously it doesn’t draft very well um I think uh I think when you look at the history of of what’s happened here even before I got to this organization Bryson was somebody that everybody believed has a chance to be special um not just in the business but as a human being he’s a really rare person and I think you saw from his earlier answers he’s just about the work he’s about winning and he’s not about himself um and that’s something that’s really meaningful to us on and off the court and Bryson really exemplifies everything that we want to be about from a character standpoint from a work ethic standpoint um his family his wife Tiff and their kids like they’re the kind of people we want this thing to be about and we want to keep attracting people like him and so the way you do that is you put people like this in leadership positions and you let that energy speak for itself so we’re really excited that he was willing to do it you uh mentioned the ability to have first defensive schemes late in the playoffs and that was a a big thing this postseason were there uh any other takeaways you guys had just maybe on on the offensive side of things um that may help shape your your roster moving forward um you know paint pressure um you know when when Z went down um you know that that really uh affected our offense and so I think you can add more playmaking more paint pressure and um a rim running diving big it does put pressure on the rim um it doesn’t necessarily have to be the ball handler but you can create uh paint touches by uh middle ball screens angle pick and rolls and having your big put pressure on the paint and now triggers are created so now it frees up the weak side and so um I think that’s one one of the takeaways that we hope to address in in this season yeah can I ask you a question about maybe I just referenced the landscape of the the NBA you talked about being a 49 win team and you were in the play um do you ever remember a time when it was this hyper aggressive of you know everybody trying to make moves to enhance their positioning during your tenure in weag well there’s it’s so there’s a couple things going on it’s it’s it’s sort of happening on multiple levels right so there’s there’s people that are trying to be Uber aggressive to win right now by trading all of their draft picks there’s also people dealing with the apron for the first time that have never had to deal with that before so you’ve got teams that are able to be Uber aggressive because their teams are very good and they’re not at the apron so they’ve been sustainable enough to get to this point and they can cash in when the rules change nobody really knew what that was going to be so some of the rules have changed in such a way that there’s a Randomness to this and you’re ability to really push her chips in all at one time and that’s that’s leveled the playing field a little bit in an odd sort of way but I also I mean historically there’s never been 10 teams 10 games over 500 in any conference and that’s the West we’re in right now and it’s only getting better there were teams that were very aggressive already this offseason that were theoretically behind us um and that’s why I say we we need to be aggressive I I think it’s really a positive thing for our organization that we’ve won more games three years in a row that we’ve built what we’ve built in terms of players wanting to stay here that’s tremendous that’s not why we’re doing this we’re doing this to win and we’re doing it to win at the highest level and you’re not going to do that by not being aggressive and that should be really evident now um what New York did um in the trade that they made that’s an all-in move and when you get to a point where you’ve got a level of confidence that you’re a homecourt playoff team you can do that in the Western Conference it’s really hard to have that level of confidence and so it’s an interesting sort of push and pool that you have to deal with in the west um but it’s it’s definitely Fletcher to your to your question it’s the first time I’ve seen a league like this David do you feel like you guys have to first get there get to in that top four host maybe a playoff series or get to the second round before you know maybe now I should think about pushing all my chips in like New York I think it’d make it easier it doesn’t mean you wait because you got to get there first and in the west you may not get there without being aggressive so I think we’re really really blessed we have ownership and Mrs Benson that lets us do our job and they don’t put constraints on us financially in a way that would make it impossible to succeed um at the same time we can’t be wrong we’re not going to be an apron team so when we go in we better be right cuz we don’t get to do it twice three times four times like some teams do you can either hoard all the talent and never have to make a decision and just pay your way past it or you can be right and thankfully because of Bryson and his team we’ve been right the vast majority of the time draft wise we’ve struck on really high variance guys that are producing far beyond their contract that’s because of the work his group does and that’s put us in a position where we may need to Guess that this is our time and push some chips in so we need to to your point we need to get to that point before we can even try to figure out if we’re right or not we just look to get into the second round tomorrow or anything like that yeah we could I I think it’s possible you know again I mentioned the draft was deeper than it was top heavy and people saw this as kind of a flat draft there are several people still on the board we’re intrigued by so it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility we do that I ask price just a personal question sure I mean this is a pretty transient business you look at people’s bios and they like a year year years You’ been 15 years here and you’re for the foreseeable future do you understand the uniqueness of that that you made a career for all practical purposes from the bottom to the top in one place yeah absolutely I think about that quite a bit and and just blessed and fortunate um the the 15 years honestly it feels like I’ve been here for like three you know like time has gone by so quickly I remember pulling into the Ario Center like it was just yesterday and now you know here here I here I am you know I know it’s not it’s not normal for someone to be in uh the same organization for 15 years but it just goes to show just the type of organization that I get a chance to work for and that’s what I just I just keep going back to the word blessed um I’m blessed and thankful to be working here and working for this this organization it’s um it really is it’s it’s a dream yeah you kind of appreciate his journey having start as an um yeah and I was with Phoenix for 17 years right so um a lot of his journey spoke to me when I got here um former video guys stick together as much as we can um and uh despite the fact that I was doing it back when it was decked to deck I still I still thought of myself as a video guy so um his situation very much spoke to me from the day I got here um and we’ve we’ve had a really close relationship I think almost from the day I started absolutely and uh yeah it it definitely was there was a connection there in terms of our our backgrounds and the way we got here he was actually a really really good basketball player and played collegiately and um when I first got here played quite a bit and could still be used in practice and those types of things um that was very not much not my story um but beyond that I I saw a lot of similarities in the way that he came up you fly staff in the front office to participate the high there um I think we’ll probably make a couple additions um front office um obviously there’s there have been some turnover in our coaching area as well um I know coach green is really really excited About Eve I know that staff is excited about Eve um and and I expect that we’re going to continue to add people to the group that will help him develop and and help all of our young guys I think our when we’re at the point we’re at now our player development’s got to really take the next jump and so I I know coach is excited about that so I think we’ll we’ll put some focus on that in in the next hires as well just to your point about Player Development and kind of touch on the question I asked earlier do you anticipate being able to like commit like 10 12 15 minutes or so to developing e like across across the season you know it’s interesting I I think I I said this before one of the benefits that Oklahoma City had was that they were developing their young players in an atmosphere where winning didn’t matter and they were judging themselves by the quality of their reps they were judging themselves by the work not the results I would really like to think that we’re at a point now as a team where we can judge the development of our players by the work and I don’t care what it looks like I want the work rate to be really high and I think we’re in agreement that the Birmingham Squadron is a good opportunity for people to develop it doesn’t matter if they’re playing minutes if the quality of the Reps aren’t really really good and the attention to detail isn’t really really good and the work that they put in here when they’re playing what we call the stay fit games those only matter if the quality of the reps are really really good so if we can put a young player into a situation in a game where they can get quality reps they have an opportunity to really take off and I think coach green and his staff if you look at the development of herb Jones of Jose Alvarado of Trey Murphy they’ve done a really good job of picking and choosing the spots they put these guys in and we’re going to continue to lean into that thank you guys thank you thanks guys

Watch New Orleans Pelicans Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations David Griffin and General Manager Bryson Graham discuss the selection of Baylor center Yves Missi with the 21st overall pick in Round 1 of the 2024 NBA Draft on Wednesday, June 26, 2024.
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New Orleans Pelicans Roster
———————————————–
Jose Alvarado #15 Guard
Dyson Daniels #11 Guard
Jordan Hawkins #24 Guard
Brandon Ingram #14 Forward
Herbert Jones #5 Forward
E.J. Liddell #32 Forward
Naji Marshall #8 Forward
CJ McCollum #3 Guard
Trey Murphy III #25 Guard
Larry Nance Jr. #22 Forward
Jeremiah Robinson-Earl #50 Forward
Matt Ryan #37 Forward
Dereon Seabron #0 Guard
Jonas Valanciunas #17 Center
Zion Williamson #1 Forward
Cody Zeller #44 Forward-Center

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