Pelicans Rookie Yves Missi Helped to Locker Room with Leg Injury

The New Orleans Pelicans simply cannot have nice things. Just as rookie center Yves Missi was starting to look like a legitimate steal, he was helped to the locker room with a leg injury on Friday night.

Getting "helped" off the floor is the exact phrase nobody wants to read on a Friday night timeline. It usually means we are skipping the ice pack phase and heading straight for the MRI tube.

"Underdog NBA reported Missi was helped to the locker room with a leg injury."

Before his leg gave out, Missi was putting up the kind of numbers that make you double-take the box score. We are talking about a recent 30-minute shift where he dropped 13 points, grabbed 14 rebounds, dished five assists, and swatted three shots. That is a massive return on investment for a guy most casual fans had to Google in October.

But the rookie has been collecting minor injuries like they are trading cards. Between a right hand sprain, ankle tweaks, and back tightness, the Pelicans' medical staff is logging more high-leverage minutes than half the roster.

For anyone holding a ticket on Missi's rebounding props or relying on him in a daily fantasy lineup, seeing him carried off is a brutal beat. The sportsbooks will immediately pull his lines, and you can expect opposing big men to get a serious bump in their projections if he misses extended time.

Now we wait for the official diagnosis. If Missi is sidelined for a while, New Orleans will have to patch together a frontcourt rotation with duct tape, and the paint is about to become an open runway for the rest of the league.