This is part of a four part series on the Trail Blazers 2025 offseason. You can read all the previously published and future parts via the links below.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 (You are here) – Part 4

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China.

We know it. We comprehend it. But we probably don’t quite get it. There’s much to be said about the country that built some of history’s greatest walls, largest cities, most forbidden palaces and a communist republic that’s about as communist as it is a republic, but that’s all beside the point.

The People’s Republic currently operates with over 1.3 billion people within its borders and its Basketball Association is currently operating with the idea that they can dwarf any NBA broadcast with their own domestic audience alone.

And it’s this type of logic that has often been referenced as to why the Portland Trail Blazers decided to forgo conventional wisdom of drafting Cedric Coward and then leaving Brooklyn’s Barclays Center to go home. Or I guess their headquarters in Tualatin.

Worth it for the quicker commute.

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Instead, they traded their #11 pick to Memphis for the #16 pick, a future unprotected first rounder from Orlando and a pair of second rounders intended to replace those sent alongside Anfernee Simons to Boston in return for Jrue Holiday until they managed to renegotiate the deal to a simple player swap. In other words, a smart business day in Portland.

And like good businessmen, they compounded the interest by selecting a virtual unknown from the Qingdao Eagles of the Chinese Basketball Association, Yang Hansen.

In his native China, Yang is anything but an unknown. He won the league’s defensive player of the year in his rookie season, and has been touted as the league’s best prospect since Yao Ming. Some have questioned the league’s competitive talent and Yang’s own skills in reference to his more modest statistics when compared to Yao.

But hey, man, Yao Ming averaged Wilt Chamberlain like numbers against a far weaker CBA than Yang, and Yang is entering the league much younger than Yao did. It’s an argument so contradictory as to cross your eyes before watching Yang play. And the reality of the argument should not be a comparison to Yao, but a comparison to Deandre Ayton.

Just days after drafting Yang Hansen, the Trail Blazers released Ayton. The first overall pick of the 2018 draft, Ayton’s career has been a marked cycle of disappointments. A talented big man lacking for nothing but mentality, as reported by multiple sources including Jason Quick, that’s what the Joe Cronin likely considered when deciding on the pick for Yang.

There’s more to be said on the subject and it should be noted that Ayton did not approach the front office until after the draft, but the point still stands. When evaluating the Yang Hansen experiment, it should be a matter of how his potential stacks up against the play of a veteran center rather than an icon of the Chinese game.

And that potential came out to play at the Las Vegas Summer League.

The young center became something of a sensation off and on the court with post-game zingers and a bevy of highlight sequences. His playstyle incubated comparisons to the likes of Nicola Jokic. It’s a bit of hyperbole, especially considering that his statistics during the summer exhibition fell into a category of solid, but not spectacular.

Each game showcased something different; passing, outside shooting, or mental resiliency, Hansen demonstrated an uncanny knowledge for how to play at the closest level possible to a real NBA game and rarely looked lost, even directing the offense at times.

For any long standing Rip Citizen that knows their history, just the suggestion of an offensive virtuoso at the pivot is… suggestive. A focal point center, if not a passing center, has the been to key to far more dynasties than not. Only a select few players can claim to prove otherwise; Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Lebron James, and Stephen Curry, principally.

Then there’s the Chinese media market component. The Trail Blazers’ first summer league game brought in massive international ratings to ESPN, with 3.4 million paid viewers coming from China alone. That’s more than some playoff games. It’s too early to tell how much that market size had any influence on pick or the forthcoming macrocosmic franchise news, but in the world of running a business and selling a product, pushing it in front of as many eyes as possible is paramount.

Only then can merchandise move. And the acquisition of Hansen has certainly opened up the doors of the store to more prospective buyers.

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