The primary problem with the Portland Trail Blazers' draft gamble on Yang Hansen with the No. 16 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft is opportunity cost. Not just in terms of what first-round prospect Portland could've selected instead, but also with who else they could be keeping on this 15-man roster.
The Blazers do still have one final spot left to fill and plan on bringing in several non-guaranteed players to compete with Micah Potter, NBA insider Jake Fischer reported via The Stein Line on Monday.
However, that one end-of-bench player isn't going to address the positional weaknesses that come from having such a lopsided roster. In a league where two-way wings are more important than ever, GM Joe Cronin has assembled a team full of point guards and centers.
Blazers multi-year Yang Hansen project comes with an opportunity cost
He essentially had no choice but to have four centers on this roster, given the uncertainty surrounding Robert Williams III's injury-proneness and Hansen's development. But in a perfect world, the Blazers would be far more comfortable with Hansen's ability to spell Donovan Clingan as the team's backup center, allowing Williams to walk in free agency (or better yet, flip him for assets back at February's trade deadline).
That quickly became a steep opportunity cost in terms of the other positions they could've addressed. It makes you wonder what the plan was with the Hansen pick, considering Clingan already showed enough to be considered the long-term starter as a rookie, and they can't effectively play alongside each other in double-big lineups given their respective inability to defend the perimeter.
It's easy to say in retrospect that the Blazers could've had Cedric Coward had they simply kept their pick at No. 11 and never traded back with the Memphis Grizzlies. But even looking at it from the standpoint of Portland's moves this offseason, they continue to pay the price of the Hansen gamble.
Last season, his inability to make an immediate impact was on full display as Portland was one of the most injury-riddled teams in the league, yet interim head coach Tiago Splitter was still reluctant to throw him into the fire.
At least now the Blazers have enough health and frontcourt depth to patiently bring along what is clearly a multi-year project. But at what point do they cut ties on an experiment that, best-case scenario, results in a viable backup for Clingan? At this point, Hansen is closer to being out of the NBA than he is to being better than Clingan.
Portland still has plenty of financial incentive to keep him around long-term. Still, as this offseason has shown, it will continue to come at the expense of a roster crunch, presenting an unnecessary hurdle in Cronin's attempt to balance this seesaw of a roster.
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