Our player preview series on the 2027 Clippers continues with promising second-year big man Yanic Konan Niederhauser.
Basic Information
Height: 6’11
Weight: 242 pounds
Position: Center
Age: 23
Years in NBA: 1
Stats: 4.3 points, 2.9 rebounds, 0.3 assists, 0.7 blocks, and 0.1 steals in 10.3 minutes per game across 41 games played (0 starts) on 64/20/64.5 shooting splits (0.1 3PA, 1.5 FTA) with 69.1% TS
Contract Status: In the second year of a first-round rookie contract, making $2.88M this year
Expectations
Yanic might have the widest range of expectations on the team. Optimists can point to the flashes he showed last year, his incredible physical tools, and roster fit with the Clippers’ most important players and suggest that he should be expected to be the Clippers’ locked in starting center as soon as he gets healthy. Pessimists might say that the Lisfranc injury that cost him the offseason combined with his rawness as a player means he should be brought along relatively slowly, and that this is still a learning season. I fall somewhere in the middle – I don’t expect Yanic to be a hyper productive, high impact starting-level player this season, but I do think that once he’s fully healthy he should be fed all the minutes that he can handle and play a major role in the rotation. I expect lots of lob dunks, hard screens, and blocked shots, as well as mistimed rotations and turnovers. It will be a mixed bag, I’m sure, but hopefully on the positive side of that spectrum.
Strengths
Yanic has an insane physical profile even by NBA player standards. He’s massive, is an explosive vertical leaper, and is extremely fast running in a straight line. Those qualities make him very intriguing as a modern pick-and-roll center, ala De’Andre Jordan, Tyson Chandler, or Clint Capela. Yanic is a dynamic presence above the rim, and can unleash truly thunderous dunks if not checked. The speed is also a huge boon in transition, where he can outrun opposing big men and get inside position or even free dunks.
Those measurements and that leaping ability come into play on defense too. If opposing players try soft shots around the basket Yanic has no difficulty in snuffing them out. He had some major blocks last year, and promises to have even more as he gets stronger and better understands the NBA game.
Lastly, there’s the undeniable fact that Yanic plays with seemingly boundless energy and enthusiasm. It’s extremely important for players of his archetype to actually use their athleticism, and Yanic does so by running hard in transition, setting ferocious screens, and making second efforts on defense. Athleticism is wasted without effort, and so far there’s been no sign of that wastage from Yanic.
Weaknesses
Despite being 23 years old, Yanic is a very raw player, which is why he fell to the 30th pick in the draft despite his obvious tools. He plays with a ton of energy, but is frequently out of position on both ends of the court. For the Clippers’ purposes, defense is the area where that hopefully gets cleaned up the most. He was a foul magnet last season (5.6 fouls per 36 minutes), and that was mostly due to being in the wrong spots on the court (in additional to lacking some physical strength). If he can cut down on those fouls, he will simply be able to stay on the court longer, which would be huge. But that positional awareness as well as the understanding of the complexities of NBA defense do not come overnight. Yanic should improve this season, but it’s unlikely he turns the corner fully in terms of his ability to be in the right spots on a regular basis.
The rawness also shows up in Yanic’s offense as well. He has a soft touch, evidenced by his excellent (for a big man) 75.8% free throw percentage, but he’s not a threat to shoot from deep yet (1-5 last year) or really from anywhere outside the paint. Yanic might have a post game, but we haven’t seen it yet – his offense comes entirely from rim-running and offensive rebounds. Despite some flashes of a handle, there’s also not a ton of indication of playmaking from either college or limited professional numbers, though he has made a couple of nice passes out of dribble handoffs. In short, it’s hard to think Yanic will be able to do much with the ball in his hands this season outside of dunk or give it back to ballhandlers.
Summary
Yanic has a very good case as the third most important player on the Clippers behind Keaton Wagler and Darius Garland. That’s both in terms of this season and for the long-term. This year, if he provides productive, impactful play at center, the Clippers’ seeming biggest positional weakness might not end up being as big of a drawback as anticipated. In the long-term, he’s one of the few players on the roster with true upside, as much of the team is either lower-upside youngsters or veterans left over from the 213 era. I hope he takes a nice step forward in his second season and truly cements himself as a piece of the Clippers’ core moving forward.