[Highlight] Yang Hansen with a great no look over the shoulder dime to Jayson Kent for the clutch dunk (with a replay)
Yang-gang, we are so back.
I know SL isn’t a great indicator for how they perform in the league, but Yang has looked so good that it has me wondering why Blazer fans are so down on him. Was his rookie season really that bad?
He was just way behind on being used to NBA speed and physicality. He has great instincts and vision (as this play shows!) but in his NBA minutes everything is moving fast, and you can see him freeze and second guess himself. I think he has a chance to be good (offensively at least) once he adjusts to the speed of the NBA game.
Yeah I’ve heard he’s slow, but he’s looked surpringly agile in these games. I was impressed, and more interested to see how it translates this season.
It’s not him being physically slow per se (and I think he has put in work and looks more agile, I agree!), it’s more processing the speed of the game, which means the things he can do offensively against G or Summer League competition don’t work since he’s pausing for a moment and overthinking. Hopefully NBA reps help, he is still young and raw!
Gotcha. In that case, it sounds like a typical rookie problem and he’ll likely play more instinctual as he goes. He looked too advanced for these summer leaguers, so that’s a good sign lol
Yeah I hope so too! He has excellent passing skills and some slick post footwork, I hope he can get it to translate.
You also have to factor in he barely spoke English when arriving. He recently started doing interviews in English, its not perfect but its MUCH better. That being said, I’m sure its much harder to adjust to the NBA when you also barely understand what is being said and need everything translated.
Yeah even in this clip, he seems a step slow to make the pass compared to someone like Jokic. Obvs not fair to compare him to a seasoned MVP player, but that really is the difference in the NBA.
I think with enough reps and confidence he can get closer to NBA speed. The vision and intuition are there, just needs to be more decisive in his moves.
I imagine part of the frustration is they traded back from the position where Coward was picked for him and coward had a great rookie season
Big men typically take a lot longer to realize their full potential than guards
I like Coward and think he has room to grow still but he is also one of the older rookies in the league and was given a lot of rope in Memphis. On a better team he might not have gotten the minutes and role needed to look good. Plus with the older rookies sometimes they don’t have as much runway when it comes to the ceiling. Like Jamie Jaquez Jr is a guy that burst onto the scene and kind of is what he was still.
That said as a Blazer fans I’d trade Yang for Coward. I just don’t see a ton of opportunity for Yang in Portland. You can’t play drop on D for 48 minutes and Clingan and Yang are both guys you gotta drop with.
Hes real rough, but obviously you can tell he has some talent you cant teach. I think he’ll turn it around
He was billed as a raw project from day one and some of their fans decided that meant “ready to play day one or he’s a bust”. Whether he ultimately pans out or not, the kneejerk reactions seemed to come from a place of impatience. This always looked like a 2-3 year experiment.
That place of impatience is kind of Blazer fans’ mojo dojo casa house. Source: the “all-in” trades I’ve seen pitched for years
Plus years of Neil Olshey taking the older safer rookies have Blazers fans not k owing what it is like to take a flyer on a project. Which is dumb because I was complaining about the low upside of most of NOs picks.
some of their fans decided that meant “ready to play day one or he’s a bust”.
Its moreso a portion of the fan base (not me, just pointing it out) was angry that the Blazers didn’t draft Coward and instead traded back for Yang. It pops up every few months in /r/ripcity if Coward has a good game.
He has a really unique skillset and I think it’s just going to be a case of finding the right situations he can shine in vs real NBA teams. He’s never going to be fast or switchable, so how do you maximise his strengths (creativity, passing etc) while not letting teams exploit him defensively? Hopefully the new coach can unlock him.
Yeah I like how guard-like he plays. The biggest problem I noticed was his stamina/conditioning. He put in good effort, but looked gassed at certain points. I’m sure it’ll be more of a struggle against actual teams, but I’d love him as a back up C
To be fair Clingan looked exhausted his entire rookie season lol. A year of proper NBA training and conditioning can make a huge difference for Yang going into year two. He also flew in from china recently and missed a game due to illness or rest, so he is probably not peak shape right now.
I think the main thing was the messaging and leaks from team sources taking about he’s expected to be a night one contributor and NBA ready, to then immediately look lost on the court and only have small glimpses of potential when he got playing time in season
This SL has me hopeful not cause the results, but the process looked a lot better. Quick decisions, knowing who he could physically dominate, the passing translates really well and stayed pretty good all SL vs last year there were a couple great reads but the consistency wasn’t there. Overall, seems the confidence and year of NBA training/conditioning has done numbers for him
Still see him as a 3rd center, but hopefully this season goes better for him overall
Yeah that’s the consensus I’ve heard. That he was a wasted first round pick, and the main appeal for picking him was to get more international fans. I haven’t watched many Blazers games, but I really thought Yang was a bust based on how I saw people talk about him. So I guess I had the opposite experience where I had really low expectations and he actually impressed me 😂
Yeah, he was drafted as a project — but some fans didn’t fully appreciate that. He has real skills that make him one of those high ceiling, but potential for bust players, worth taking a swing on!
Well, as far as advanced stats go, he was ranked #535 in EPM/actual (which was the worst in the league).
And he’s made a few good plays in SL like in this clip, but “looked so good” is debatable (3 ast/4 TOs last night).
I think they knew he’d be a project but didn’t expect THIS much of a project. Also, way too many fans expect rookies to produce right away for some reason so I’m sure a section of Blazers fans were like “why did we draft this bum at 16” even though the idea was that he’d hopefully become a good player in a few years.
Was his rookie season really that bad?
Yes. Lots of 0/0/0 with 2-3 turnover type games even on super low minutes. He was just always a step behind.
Magic Hansen
Great. Portland has another point guard smh
He transforms into Jokic during the month of July.
im a fanhansen
Damn 19 was just frozen for an eternity
Can the blazers trade him to a team that doesn’t have 4 centers? There is no way to adjust to NBA speed if he doesn’t play on the court.