The NBA recently released the schedules for the 2025-26 season. This year, they gave the Portland Trail Blazers exactly what they wanted.
Portland begins the regular season on Wednesday, October 22. It's a home game against the Minnesota Timberwolves, and most importantly, Rudy Gobert. Portland needs to see exactly what they have in unconventional first-round pick Yang Hansen. He'll immediately be tested against a four-time Defensive Player of the Year.
Yang Hansen will be put to the test in his NBA debut
Hansen had a promising summer league in which he averaged 10.8 points, 5.0 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 2.3 blocks. That alone should be enough to justify the Blazers taking Hansen with the No. 16 overall pick, proving that there's something in his game worth taking a gamble on. Yet critics remain.
Hansen was widely projected to be a second-round selection, partly because of concerns surrounding how his game in the CBA would translate to a more competitive and physical NBA. Although he had an impressive summer league, those concerns haven't been fully put to rest, given the small sample size and overall summer league environment. But if Hansen manages to carry that momentum into the regular season -- and we expect he will -- it will be hard to argue with the Blazers' pick.
Hansen's offensive skillset is well-suited to go up against an elite rim protector like Gobert. He's a willing and improving shooter who's already a threat beyond the arc, which will drag Gobert out to the perimeter and open up lanes for Portland. His elite court vision will also help the Blazers' offense get easier opportunities against a stout Timberwolves defense that was sixth in defensive rating (110.8) last season.
Hansen's turnovers were a bit concerning, but Sean Highkin of The Rose Garden Report noted that some were due to his teammates. "Some of his turnovers at Summer League were entry passes to cutters going to the basket that were just a little bit outside the capacity of most of the players he was playing with in Vegas to track down. More than one time, he overthrew one of those passes and I thought to myself, 'Shaedon Sharpe or Deni Avdija is getting that,'" Highkin wrote.
We should get an answer about how Hansen's passing complements Portland's athletic roster as soon as October 22. Portland has a crowded frontcourt, but everything points to Hansen immediately getting opportunities.
"We'd feel comfortable putting him in a game right now. He's that good. I don't see this as a 'project' type of situation," Chauncey Billups said.
More recently, Highkin predicted how Portland's center rotation would play out, saying that Hansen should receive north of 12 minutes a game (a number suggested in a mailbag).
"With Williams being a giant question mark with his health and Reath not being the kind of center who can play in every matchup, it's going to be a lot of Clingan and Yang."
So not only will we see Yang early on, we'll also see him immediately put to the test against Gobert and the Timberwolves. It's unfair to conclude whether this pick was genius, foolish, or somewhere in between just based on one game. But we should at least get a sense of how Hansen fits in with the Blazers' roster and whether he can truly hold his own in the NBA as a rookie. It will be difficult for people to say otherwise if he plays like he did in the summer league against Gobert.
One thing is sure: it will be a highly anticipated debut. Hansen's summer league game drew 5.2 million viewers in China, and this one is much more meaningful.