The shock, Portland's Yang firewall and the roars of triumph
The Blazers "got their guy" in Chinese center Yang Hansen and shocked the basketball world in the process.
TUALATIN, Ore. – The Portland Trail Blazers put up a firewall around their plans to draft Yang Hansen that rivals the famous Great Firewall of China. How fitting. After the first round ended, Blazers GM Joe Cronin gave context to the roars emanating from their draft war room when Commissioner Adam Silver officially announced that they had drafted Yang. As the rest of the Blazers brass walked into the theater room for Cronin’s post-draft presser, it was as if I was watching the final scene of Ocean’s 11, with everyone’s eyes beaming like they were watching the fountain at the Bellagio.
When I concluded my last dispatch with “stay tuned,” I had no idea what the Portland Trail Blazers had planned for us. And neither did anybody else in the NBA world, with Wednesday night’s draft proving once again that the predictive ability of Mock Draft Season is massively oversold.
Wednesday’s draft was yet another example that “intel” from media members during a highly secretive process with millions of dollars and front office jobs on the line is little more than a content vertical. We don’t actually learn much from the entire apparatus, which Wednesday night’s first round proved many times.
NOBODY had Egor Demin going in the top 10 and he went to Brooklyn at No. 8. Cedric Coward, whom I wanted Portland to take but was mocked in the 20s, was picked at 11 by Portland, only to be traded to Memphis for No. 16, a 2028 unprotected Orlando Magic first-round pick and two second-round picks.
And that is when things started to go truly off the rails. After trading No. 11, as each pick went by, suspense was building. French forward Noa Essengue went 12th to the Bulls, then the Pelicans traded up 10 spots to No. 13 for Derik Queen.
Carter Bryant, who had a secret pre-draft workout with the Blazers, went 14th to the Spurs. With the 15th pick, 2025 champs Oklahoma City picked big man Thomas Sorber, who was one of the best freshmen in the nation at Georgetown. Kasparas Jakucionis, who was projected to go to Portland in ESPN’s final mock draft, was on the board with Portland picking at No. 16.
Then the Blazers shocked the world by drafting Yang out of China. While Blazers fans and the basketball world at large were stunned and stupefied, the roar from the Blazers draft war room indicated that they believed they just had pulled off a heist that nobody saw coming.
Of course, I was shocked like everybody else when I saw the first tweets about Yang. I needed to take a lap. Probably like you, I was thinking: WTF just happened?
As I walked out of the theater room where the local media was watching the draft broadcast in the Blazers’ practice facility, to the practice floor for my lap, the pick was officially announced by Silver. And that’s when the roar came from the war room. While I will admit it’s been a while since I’ve been at the PF for a draft night, I have never seen a front office group so thrilled by what they just did.
“We couldn’t be more excited,” Cronin said. “This is a very, very unique talent in our opinion. Obviously, great size at 7-2, (he) just turns 20 tomorrow (June 26). High, high-end skillset, with his ability to pass, his basketball IQ, his functionality in the post, and his ability to step out. He’s a good free-throw shooter, we think he will be able to hit perimeter jump shots. Defensively, he’s a really smart player that could be pretty versatile in the post with his size and IQ. He’s coming over to America, and that’s going to be an adjustment, and it’s our job to prepare him and develop him like all of our guys. But there will be a big emphasis on pouring into him and getting him to his peak.”
As Cronin’s press conference went on, he told the story of the Blazers getting tipped off by one of their scouts about Yang after his performance in the 2023 FIBA U19 World Cup, where he averaged 12.6 points, 10.4 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and a tournament-high 5 blocks per game. After learning about Yang from that performance, the Blazers sent Assistant General Managers Mike Schmitz and Sergi Oliva to China to scout him in person. Since the pick was made, video of Schmitz watching Yang in China in December of 2023, only a few months after that U19 tournament, has been widely circulated on Twitter.
But what was not widely circulated was Portland’s interest in Yang. After scouting him and becoming impressed, the Blazers also got a closer look at Yang during a scrimmage against the Chinese National Team last year, during an off-day at the Las Vegas Summer League. You can find photos of the scrimmage on the Blazers website, but there was no video. And much of the media coverage of the event centered on another Chinese player on Portland’s Summer League team: Jacky Cui, who signed a two-way contract with the Nets last season before eventually getting waived.
With everything we know now, it’s clear that not having any video from the scrimmage was clearly by design. Portland’s Chinese firewall was up for a long, long time. In that scrimmage, according to witnesses, it was evident that Yang was China’s best player, and he was even matched up against Donovan Clingan.
Cronin said during his presser that “(Yang) was the target” for the Blazers, while adding that they were uncomfortable moving back further into the first round. Left unsaid by Cronin: the Nets, owned by Taiwanese-Chinese billionaire Joe Tsai, were lurking with the 19th pick.
“(Schmitz and Oliva) came back very, very impressed,” Cronin said. “We were actually hoping he would be in last year’s draft. He didn’t declare last year, and we continued to scout him for the last year.”
The plan for Yang is to come over immediately, with a press conference expected later this week. Yang does not speak English and will have a translator, adding even more intrigue to Portland’s new International Man of Mystery. Yang was the 2023-24 CBA Defensive Player of the Year, and the Blazers praised both his passing and high IQ on both ends of the floor.
It’s unclear how ready Yang will be to contribute on Day 1, mostly because nobody has really seen the guy play full games. Chinese Basketball Association games, unlike other international leagues, are not easily accessible. Thanks to the aforementioned Chinese Firewall, access to live CBA games from outside of China is basically impossible. That makes it even more of a leg-up on the competition to send Schmitz and Oliva to China to see him in person.
The scouting community, in general, has been down on Chinese talent over the past few years. But with the nation’s passion for the NBA game being so widespread, as well as the investment from international sportswear brands to build youth basketball infrastructure in China, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before they get another high-level player to follow in Yao Ming’s footsteps. And the Blazers clearly believe Yang can be that kind of player, or at least something close to it.
If Yang is ready to contribute on Day 1, then the Blazers have some serious work to do to make sure the rest of their roster makes sense. Yang is now their 5th center, joining last year’s lottery pick Donovan Clingan, as well as Deandre Ayton, Robert Williams and Duop Reath.
As Cronin’s press conference went on, he discussed wanting to have a variety of different looks to throw at teams and said that head coach Chauncey Billups has “a lot of work to do,” to figure out the various looks and how he wants to deploy them when the season comes around.
So while nobody saw this move coming, and a lot of draftniks think the reach the Blazers took was insane, the roar from the war room suggests that everybody in that room believes they know something that nobody else does. Sometimes moves like that end up paying off in major ways, like when the Milwaukee Bucks drafted Giannis. Other times, it can be a team outsmarting itself, like when the Toronto Raptors drafted Bruno Caboclo.
Where Yang ends up on that spectrum is anybody’s guess. But the Blazers believe they have a deeper wealth of information on him than the rest of the NBA and the mock draft community.
At this time last year, I was very skeptical of their trade for Deni Avdija, and it turned out to be one of their best moves of the Cronin era. If they’re right and Yang is the player they believe he is, the Portland Trail Blazers will become a global household name overnight. And if they’re wrong, like I said at the top, jobs are on the line.
Notes
Just last week, while watching Game 6 of the Finals at a bar, I told my pal Seth Allen that I had a feeling Yang would go in the first round and was considering placing a bet on him at +115 odds. I had heard the buzz from the combine and Ryen Russillo talking about liking his game on the Bill Simmons podcast, thinking it would be an intriguing bet on a rare Chinese draft prospect, given the NBA’s popularity in the country. I never made that bet. Then the Blazers made an even bigger one.
Yang averaged 33.2 minutes per game in 45 games last season. He was also named the Chinese Basketball Association’s “Rising Star of the Year” in back-to-back seasons.
Yang’s 33.2 minutes per game are very intriguing to me, as is his potential availability. He’s played in over 100 games over the last two seasons. While that’s not an NBA regular season workload, that’s three collegiate seasons’ worth of games. And while nothing matches the speed and pace of the NBA, the Chinese Basketball Association is probably the international league that most resembles the NBA’s pace and space. While European leagues are structured and coach-controlled, the Chinese system is more free-flowing and also peppered with former NBA players across the league. While we don’t know if it will accelerate his learning curve right away, coming from a fast-paced international league can’t hurt.
The 2028 Orlando Magic first-round pick was the big asset the Blazers were able to extract from their trade back. While the Magic are expected to be very good in 2025-26 in a weakened Eastern Conference following their trade for Desmond Bane, the Blazers do have a lottery ticket just in case things in Orlando don’t go as planned three years from now. It also gives them a guaranteed first in 2028 if they still haven’t fulfilled their draft obligations to the Chicago Bulls from the Derrick Jones-Larry Nance Jr. trade. I really like the Magic. I don’t think that pick will be that great in three years. But it’s a good ticket to have in case of an injury, a trade or something else happening with Orlando down the line. As we just saw with all of the injuries in the playoffs, you truly never know what can happen. It could also be an asset they can move in a deal since they can’t trade any of their own future draft picks due to the aforementioned Jones-Nance trade.
In addition to the five centers on the roster, the Blazers still have a lot of work to do. Jerami Grant’s place on the roster remains a question mark, and given the makeup of the roster, it would make sense to move him to clear the decks for the Camara-Avdija forward duo. Also, the Blazers still have not officially completed the trade call for the Simons-Holiday deal with the Boston Celtics. While the Blazers can’t say anything explicitly about their hopes to expand the trade, you can tell that’s what they hope to do by reading between the lines.
By taking Yang instead of Jakucionis, Portland’s belief in Scoot Henderson should no longer be in question. It wasn’t a question for me, but in case it was for you, the Blazers just answered emphatically that they believe Scoot is the young ball-handler they will continue to build around.