HOUSTON — Yang Hansen is poised to play in his first basketball game since October.
But it won’t come with the Portland Trail Blazers.
The team on Thursday assigned Hansen to the NBA G League for a two-game stint with the Rip City Remix, and the 7-foot-2 rookie center is scheduled to play in upcoming matchups at the Valley Suns (Friday) and the South Bay Lakers (Sunday). Hansen is expected to rejoin the Blazers next week, when the team returns to Portland following its five-game trip.
He opened the season as the Blazers’ backup center, playing limited minutes in the first five games behind starter Donovan Clingan. But Hansen was mostly held in check, averaging just 1.8 points, 0.8 rebounds, 0.4 blocks in roughly six minutes per game. When Robert Williams III returned from an injury absence on Nov. 3, the veteran center assumed Hansen’s playing time and relegated the rookie to the bench.
Hansen has not played since Oct. 29, when he scored two points in four minutes in a win at the Utah Jazz.
This will not be his first stint with the Remix. The Blazers assigned him to their G League affiliate on Nov. 1 so that he could participate in practices, and he went through multiple Remix workouts over the first week of the month. But when the Blazers left Portland last Thursday for their 10-day trip, Hansen joined them and was with the team during stops in Miami, Orlando and New Orleans.
He went through his normal pregame workout Wednesday before the Blazers’ 125-117 win at New Orleans.
“He’s doing great,” Blazers interim coach Tiago Splitter said last week, when asked about Hansen’s development. “He’s working hard every day. Obviously, he’s learning a lot right now, he’s picking up a lot. But he’s doing great. He’s working really hard.”
Splitter has said multiple times in recent weeks that his message to Hansen has been consistent and simple: His development is a “marathon” and “not a sprint,” so the organization is thinking big-picture with his rookie season. If anything, Splitter has suggested, the franchise does not want to put too much on Hansen too soon and sabotage his long-term potential.
The Remix play the same system and run the same plays as the Blazers, so competing in the G League can be a natural part of the development process, especially for an unproven player from China who has limited high-level experience.
An NBA player with three or fewer years of service can be assigned to the G League an unlimited number of a times, assuming he is under contract, so this likely won’t be the last time Hansen dons a Remix uniform.
The Blazers selected Hansen with the No. 16 pick of the 2025 NBA draft in one of the biggest surprises of the annual two-day event and he entered the season as one of the team’s biggest curiosities.
Teammates and coaches repeatedly touted his play during training camp and he teased his potential during a memorable performance against the Sacramento Kings during the exhibition season. But Hansen has struggled with the speed of the NBA and the athleticism of his competition since the start of the regular season.
So now, after sitting and watching the last six Blazers games, Hansen will finally be given another opportunity to play in one with the Remix.
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