Donovan Clingan’s rise has changed the way Portland has to think about its frontcourt, and it’s hard to ignore what that means for the Blazers’ Yang Hansen bet.
Clingan is no longer just a promising young big. After a second-year breakout, he’s established himself as a foundational piece in Portland, and arguably the second-most important player on the roster behind All-Star Deni Avdija.
His value starts on the defensive end, where he’s already become central to the Blazers’ identity. He’s in the conversation with the league’s top rebounders and rim protectors, and that kind of impact doesn’t need much embellishment.
The offensive side is moving too. Portland always believed Clingan could stretch the floor, and this past season offered a real look at that version of him.
He’s still improving there, but the early signs suggest a higher ceiling than many expected when he came out of UConn. For a No. 7 overall pick in 2024, that makes him one of the best selections in that class and, more importantly for Portland, the best return from its rebuild so far.
That’s part of why the rest of the roster conversation has shifted. The Blazers brought in Ja Morant to address backcourt uncertainty, a move that says plenty about how they view Scoot Henderson and Shaedon Sharpe as long-term answers there. In the frontcourt, though, the picture is less about Clingan’s spot and more about what comes after him.
Portland added Branden Carlson, Micah Potter, and Jeremy Sochan to fight for frontcourt depth, even with Robert Williams III and Yang Hansen already on the roster. That’s the cost of the Hansen gamble: the Blazers are effectively carrying a roster complication every season until he can help.
They’ve built enough depth to take their time with him, but the question hangs over everything. What exactly is Portland developing him for?
Hansen did look better in Summer League this year, but he still has to show that any of it translates to the NBA. The challenge gets tougher because Portland is trying to manage two timelines at once, developing a long-term project at a position it already has solved while also trying to build on a postseason appearance.
The fit is awkward in another way, too. Neither Hansen nor Clingan can play power forward, which limits the minutes available for either one to grow into. Portland has a plan to avoid depending on Hansen right away, but the longer this goes on, the more the roster strain becomes part of the story.
There are still reasons to keep investing in Hansen. He’s a seven-footer with a rare skill set, and the upside is obvious if he ever becomes an offensive hub in Portland.
But that outcome would require him not only to beat out Clingan, but also to become good enough to run the offense through. That remains the best-case scenario, and there’s still a long road between that vision and the reality on the floor.
The original cost of the Hansen gamble was Cedric Coward, or whoever Portland would have taken at No. 11 if it had stayed put. Now the cost shows up in a different form: the Blazers are using frontcourt resources to cover for Hansen and Williams’ injury history when they should be building wing and forward depth behind Avdija and Toumani Camara. Right now, that leaves Vit Krejci, who struggled in his Blazers season debut, and Sidy Cissoko, who still can’t space the floor and is dealing with the usual growing pains at 22.
That’s why the pick is getting harder to defend. It would make more sense if Portland were still deep in a rebuild or still searching for its center of the future.
Instead, Clingan already looks like exactly that. Consecutive first-round investments at center are delivering less and less value, and the burden of keeping Hansen in the mix keeps landing on the roster every summer.
For a team trying to get back to the postseason with only a few years left in Lillard’s window, Portland at least enters 2026-27 with frontcourt depth as a strength. But the longer Hansen remains a work in progress, the tougher it becomes to justify the gamble that brought him in one year after Clingan already solved the position.
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Thunder Still Have A Costly Roster Crunch Coming Soon
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