The Portland Trail Blazers spent the 2025 NBA Draft talking up Yang Hansen as more than a long-term swing. They took him with the No. 16 overall pick and made it clear they believed he could help right away.
For a while, that idea looked reasonable. Hansen turned heads during summer league and quickly became one of the offseason’s biggest talking points.
Then the regular season arrived, and the picture changed fast.
The same issues that had pushed Hansen into second-round territory in plenty of projections showed up once the games counted. He struggled to handle the NBA’s pace and physicality, and the early promise from summer league didn’t carry over.
Portland’s interim head coach Tiago Splitter said he wanted to stay patient with Hansen and avoid rushing him, but the Blazers’ injury problems made that harder to manage than anyone likely wanted. With the team banged up and chasing playoff goals, Hansen ended up playing far more than the organization probably planned.
He appeared in 43 games for Portland, even though the better developmental path may have been a long run with the Rip City Remix in the G League. Instead, the Blazers were forced to use him while it was obvious he still wasn’t ready. That’s a long way from the original plan, especially once Portland realized the pick was really a multi-year project.
Now the bigger question is where Hansen fits next.
The Blazers still seem committed to him for the long haul, and there are reasons for that, including his upside and the financial incentives. But the frontcourt he’s walking into for the 2026-27 season looks crowded and healthy, which is not a great sign for immediate minutes.
Portland brought Robert Williams III back on a three-year deal, a move that pointed to a lack of confidence in Hansen as Donovan Clingan’s backup. The team also added Branden Carlson and Micah Potter this summer, which only makes the depth chart tighter.
Portland is also expected to bring in more non-guaranteed players to battle Potter for the final roster spots. Even with that churn, the message is hard to miss: the Blazers do not appear to trust Hansen to make an immediate impact.
That gives him something valuable - time. But it may also mean a smaller role and less production this season than he had before. After a rocky rookie year, that kind of step back would only sharpen the question Portland is already facing about whether this draft gamble was worth it.
In Other News...
Blazers Draft Pick Is Creating A Roster Problem Fans Know Too Well
Portlands decision to take Yang Hansen with the No. 16 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft brought a familiar kind of roster headache into focus, the sort that has followed the club before when the balance of the roster starts to tilt in one direction. The Blazers already have a lineup that leans heavily toward point guards and centers, which makes every move feel like it comes with a tradeoff somewhere else on the floor.
Hansen is being viewed as a multi-year project, and at least for now, the path in front of him points toward a backup center role. That leaves Portland trying to sort out both the present and the future at the same position, with no clean answer yet on how the rookie fits into the bigger picture or how long it will take before his development stops being a question and starts becoming a solution. [Read more 🡒]
Blazers Still Have One Roster Problem They Cannot Ignore
The Trail Blazers are already looking at the next roster fix after reshaping the backcourt around Ja Morant, and the issue is pretty clear: the talent is there, but the fit still needs work. Portland has been exploring ways to add more size and two-way balance on the wing and in the frontcourt, with the kind of trade chatter that usually follows a major move and forces a front office to keep recalibrating.
Among the names tied to that search are P.J. Washington, Trey Murphy III, Peyton Watson, Michael Porter Jr. and Max Strus, a mix that shows how broad Portlands options could be if it decides to chase help rather than wait for internal development. Some of those paths are more realistic than others, and the Blazers interest in certain targets has shifted as the market and their own roster picture have changed, leaving the team with a familiar question: which kind of upgrade actually solves the problem without creating a new one? [Read more 🡒]
Micah Potter Is Already Feeling Pressure In Portland
Micah Potters arrival in Portland came after the Trail Blazers claimed him off waivers from Indiana, but the move did not come with any sense of long-term security. The big man is stepping into a roster spot that is already under scrutiny, and the Blazers are clearly treating the back end of the roster like an open competition rather than a finished product.
For Potter, the pressure is immediate because Portland is bringing in other players who can push for the same job, and his path to sticking will be tied to what he does when he gets on the floor. If he cannot carve out a real role, the Blazers have plenty of incentive to keep sorting through options, which leaves Potter in a spot where every practice and every minute matters. [Read more 🡒]