The Portland Trail Blazers are already feeling the fallout from their Yang Hansen gamble, and the problem isn’t going away anytime soon.
What began with a wave of hype around Hansen has cooled fast, leaving Portland with a third-string center and a draft decision that keeps circling back to the same question: what did the Blazers give up to get here? Cedric Coward is the clearest answer.
Portland used the No. 11 overall pick on Hansen and ultimately sent Coward to the Memphis Grizzlies. Had the Blazers stayed with the consensus best player available, their rebuild would look a lot stronger than it does now.
Instead, Portland still looks like a team that needs a few more real pieces before it can be taken seriously in the Western Conference.
That’s where the Hansen pick keeps costing them. Because Portland committed to a multi-year project at center, the rest of the roster-building had to bend around it.
Even with Donovan Clingan already in the mix from the year before, the Blazers still gave Robert Williams III a three-year, $44 million extension. They also brought in more frontcourt depth with Branden Carlson, Micah Potter, and most recently Jeremy Sochan.
That much cover says plenty. If a team has to keep stockpiling insurance around a player, it’s fair to wonder whether the original bet was the right one.
To be clear, Hansen is only 21, so nobody is slapping a bust label on him yet. But the path to him becoming a real NBA piece already looks long. If he does make it, it may not happen until later in his career, once the physical tools and confidence catch up to the skill level and basketball IQ that drew Portland in.
That’s the kind of projection former assistant Blazers general manager Mike Schmitz and the front office seem to have leaned on. Schmitz, now the general manager of the Dallas Mavericks under Masai Ujiri, has spoken before about how his evaluation process has changed over time to fit the modern league.
The NBA has made room for players like Nikola Jokic and Luka Doncic, stars whose games are built on skill, IQ, and size more than raw athleticism. Schmitz’s view of talent clearly reflects that shift. Hansen had enough of those boxes checked to justify first-round consideration, but Portland appears to have glossed over the other side of the equation: the floor.
What looked workable in the CBA, Summer League, and G League has not carried over against NBA speed and physicality. So far, the transition has been rough enough that Hansen could realistically be out of the league in a few years.
At the same time, there’s another layer to this story that makes walking away even harder.
Blazers owner Tom Dundon has said he won’t play Hansen just because he draws attention, and that the rookie will have to earn his minutes like everyone else. But keeping a player and playing a player are not the same thing.
In an interview with HoopsHype, Blazers insider Sean Highkin of Rose Garden Report said the new ownership structure could shape Hansen’s future. Highkin believes Hansen is here for the long haul because his presence mattered to the minority owners when they chose to invest.
"At the press conference to introduce the new ownership group, Andrew Cherng, who co-founded Panda Express with his wife, was asked why he invested in the Blazers. He said he's Chinese, he likes that the Blazers have a Chinese player, and he sees a lot of business opportunities in China because of that."
"One of the minority owners said that on the record," Highkin continued. "And then Sheel Tyle, the other public-facing member of the group, did an interview with The Athletic and talked about wanting to make the Blazers into Asia's team. He had dinner with Yao Ming, who talked about how popular Hansen is."
"So you've got one minority owner saying he only invested because they had a Chinese player, and another saying he wants to make them Asia's team. I think it's pretty clear (Yang) Hansen is very much a part of this organization going forward."
That doesn’t mean Portland can rewind the clock and take Coward instead. It does mean the Blazers may keep doubling down on the Hansen investment whether or not the basketball side is working.
That has already shown up this offseason in the form of the crowded center rotation built to protect against his inability to make an immediate impact. And it may keep showing up, too, because Hansen’s place in the organization appears tied to more than just what happens on the court.
For now, Portland is paying for the pick in the short term. The roster already looks thin on wings off the bench, and the longer Hansen struggles to crack the rotation, the harder it becomes to frame this as anything other than a basketball mistake.
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