{"id":603142,"date":"2026-02-14T18:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T18:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/603142\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T18:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T18:06:16","slug":"portland-trail-blazers-center-yang-hansen-has-a-ways-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/603142\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland Trail Blazers Center Yang Hansen Has a Ways to Go"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portland Trail Blazers<\/a> made what many considered a head-scratching move at June\u2019s NBA Draft. Armed with the 11th pick, the Blazers had the opportunity to take names like Cedric Coward, Carter Bryant, Derik Queen and Kasparas Jakucionis.<\/p>\n

Instead, they struck a deal with the Memphis Grizzlies, selecting Coward at 11 and sending him to Tennessee in exchange for the 16th pick, an unprotected Orlando Magic first, and two second rounders. The Blazers then took little-known Chinese big man Yang Hansen at 16, prompting this writer to yell \u201cwho?\u201d and \u201cit\u2019s a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n

My shock was clearly a product of my own ignorance and the accepted groupthink about the other names mentioned earlier. Yang had largely flown under the radar during the pre-draft process despite enjoying a relatively good NBA Draft Combine.<\/p>\n

It appears the Blazers had their collective eye on the 20-year-old from across the other side of the world for a while. In hindsight, hardly a surprise when you consider the breadth of Assistant General Manager Mike Schmitz\u2019 knowledge of international prospects.<\/p>\n

The draft decision put the onus on us, the viewer, to find out more about the young big and attempt to see why the Blazers had traded back five spots to secure Yang\u2019s services. The 7\u20191\u201d rookie had spent his latter teens competing for the Qingdao Eagles against grown men in the Chinese Basketball Association as well as some national team representation.<\/p>\n

Endowed with fancy foot work, cerebral passing instincts and soft touch around the rim, it\u2019s not hard to see why an NBA team might be ensorcelled with Yang\u2019s natural ability. The fact the Blazers were able to secure an unprotected first with him seemed like a decent haul after the initial shock wore off.<\/p>\n

Like many rookies, Yang has largely appeared in junk-time minutes, not yet ready to contribute to winning in year one. In 34 games, he\u2019s averaged 2.2 points on 13.5 percent from three, 29.8 percent from the field, 1.6 boards, 0.6 assists and 0.2 blocks in 7.5 minutes.<\/p>\n

In the five games, he\u2019s seen with the Rip City Remix, he\u2019s averaged 16.2 points on 31.3 percent from three, 50.8 percent from the field, 9.4 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 1.2 blocks in 30.9 minutes. Numbers you\u2019d ideally like to see him average with the big club and part of the reason we saw him compete yesterday at All Star weekend.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, for the Blazers, Robert Williams III has managed to stay healthy this season, serving as Donovan Clingan\u2019s main back up. When Williams has missed, they\u2019ve turned Yang in spot minutes but have largely leant on Deni Avdija, Toumani Camara, Duop Reath and Jerami Grant to play spot minutes at the five when Clingan sits.<\/p>\n

Though choosing to play smaller players at center hasn\u2019t been a ringing endorsement for the Chinese big, it\u2019s taken the pressure off, allowing him to learn in practice and by watching without feeling out of his depth.<\/p>\n

When he has taken the court, I\u2019ve appreciated his ability to play make out of the high post, in dribble hand offs and his ability execute tight and quick passes. Though not always converting to points, the ability and the footwork is undoubtable.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for Yang, he\u2019ll likely be compared to Cedric Coward, at least through the early part of his career, simply by the fact that the Blazers could have had the former Washington State wing.<\/p>\n

Coward has been a key member of the now-rebuilding Grizzlies roster, averaging 13.3 points on 34.0 percent from three, 46.8 percent from the field, 6.2 boards, 2.9 assists, and 0.6 steals in 26.3 minutes. The wing has enjoyed real minutes in Memphis, which will only increase after the franchise traded away Jaren Jackson Jr. at the deadline.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a clear difference between the two. While Yang just graduated out of his teens, Coward is 22 and five months older than Scoot Henderson, despite being drafted two years after him. The wing spent four years across three college programs and, as such, has a little more life experience to call on.<\/p>\n

While Coward still has room to grow, he\u2019s a lot closer to the finished product than Yang is.<\/p>\n

The key challenge for Yang will be to increase his comfort with the pace and physicality with the NBA game. There\u2019s a level maturity required to not only feel at ease among the game\u2019s best players, but also in a foreign land and culture. To that point, English isn\u2019t the easiest tongue to master when you haven\u2019t spoken it before. Yes, he\u2019s studied the language for years (in part to prepare for his eventual NBA journey) and he\u2019s already willing to have conversations with reporters and fans, but he\u2019s also being force-fed basketball schemes, nomenclature, and a culture he\u2019s never been exposed to so intensely before. Combine that with the high-pressure, fast-moving environment of an on-court NBA game and it\u2019s fair to assume that Hansen will only get better at communication with his teammates in split-second in-game moments.<\/p>\n

Defense might be his biggest issue. While he can move his feet on offense, Yang is a little slower on the other end of the court, which is fine considering he\u2019s 7\u20191\u201d and 270lb. My concern is that he lacks defensive instincts, often getting caught out in the wrong position.<\/p>\n

My fear is that while he can definitely improve on that end, it\u2019s clearly not an innate skill. With the big man making a resurgence in the modern game, centers are going to need to be above average on defense to give teammates a chance on that end of the floor.<\/p>\n

Yang Hansen isn\u2019t an NBA-level big right now. He probably won\u2019t be next season either. I know it\u2019s hard to watch Cedric Coward contribute for the Grizzlies because there\u2019s a good chance he\u2019s an above-average NBA player. Yang was a gamble. Sure, his floor is a lower than Coward\u2019s, but if everything clicks his ceiling is stories higher.<\/p>\n

The things that I\u2019ll be looking for over the next 18 months is Yang\u2019s ability to not only use his footwork but convert, assist, and create offense from the center position \u2014 a rare and extremely valuable tool. I\u2019m not going to call him the Chinese Jokic or Marc Gasol because the hope is that he carves out his own game.<\/p>\n

I need him to be passable on the defensive end on the floor. He doesn\u2019t need to be Donovan Clingan-level effective but he does have to make the offensive player think.<\/p>\n

Assuming the Blazers\u2019 injury luck improves, expect him to spend more time with the Rip City Remix. Never has the G League been this important as it gives the big man a chance to get used to his surroundings in a system dictated by the Blazers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portland Trail Blazers made what many considered a head-scratching move at June\u2019s NBA Draft. Armed with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,37787,6,687,471,3967,1617],"class_list":{"0":"post-603142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-portland-trail-blazers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-blazers","10":"tag-blazers-analysis","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-portland","13":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","14":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","15":"tag-trail-blazers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116070317031573070","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}