{"id":698180,"date":"2026-04-04T17:56:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T17:56:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698180\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T17:56:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T17:56:10","slug":"blazers-fined-100k-execs-suspended-after-tampering-drama-with-yang-hansen-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/698180\/","title":{"rendered":"Blazers fined $100K, execs suspended after tampering drama with Yang Hansen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NBA hit the Portland Trail Blazers with a hefty punishment for \u201cviolating league rules governing contact with draft-ineligible players\u201d by scouting Chinese 7-footer Yang Hansen in December 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Portland selected the center with the No. 16 overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft as part of a draft-night trade with the Grizzlies.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The NBA said Wednesday it\u2019s fining the Trailblazers $100,000 and suspending assistant general managers Sergi Oliva and Mike Schmitz for two weeks each without pay.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yang Hansen #16 of the Portland Trail Blazers dribbles the ball during the game against the Washington Wizards on March 29, 2026 at the Moda Center Arena in Portland, Oregon. NBAE via Getty Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775325368_562_ef4f79fc8a0b82aa866647bbef0d4e27.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Yang Hansen #16 of the Portland Trail Blazers dribbles the ball during the game against the Washington Wizards on March 29, 2026 at the Moda Center Arena in Portland, Oregon. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The two front office personnel scouted Hansen, who was 18 at the time, making illegal contact with him before he was draft eligible.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen this was brought to our attention the Portland Trail Blazers self reported to the NBA,\u201d the league said in a statement, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ShamsCharania\/status\/2039484620354318639?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:according to ESPN;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;according to ESPN&quot;}\" class=\"link \">according to ESPN<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe team cooperated fully with the investigation and accept the league\u2019s determination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hansen, who is a native of China, was a two-time All-Star for the Qingdao Eagles of the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The 20-year-old rookie is averaging just 2.3 points and 1.6 rebounds \u00a0in 7.2 minutes per game over 41 appearances for Portland this season.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Yang Hansen #16 of the Portland Trail Blazers dunks the ball during the game against the Washington Wizards on March 29, 2026 at the Moda Center Arena in Portland. NBAE via Getty Images\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1775325370_479_a172fe55721cd198bc47327a66393307.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Yang Hansen #16 of the Portland Trail Blazers dunks the ball during the game against the Washington Wizards on March 29, 2026 at the Moda Center Arena in Portland. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>The Trail Blazers are 39-38 and currently in the ninth spot in the Western Conference, just a half-game behind the Clippers for eighth place, and will compete in the league\u2019s Play-In Tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Portland secured its spot in the Play-In Tournament with a 134-99 victory over the Brooklyn Nets last week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA hit the Portland Trail Blazers with a hefty punishment for \u201cviolating league rules governing contact with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3784],"tags":[7,601,247,559,6,687,471,3967,203,1617,468,1309],"class_list":{"0":"post-698180","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-brooklyn-nets","11":"tag-clippers","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-portland","14":"tag-portland-trail-blazers","15":"tag-portlandtrailblazers","16":"tag-the-nba","17":"tag-trail-blazers","18":"tag-washington-wizards","19":"tag-yang-hansen"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116347732110432006","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698180","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=698180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}