Trail Blazers' Yang Hansen Showing Flashes Yet Again in Las Vegas
· Yahoo Sports
Before we overreact to Yang Hansen's dominant 18-point, 10-rebound five-assist effort in the Portland Trail Blazers' 111-84 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves ... it's important to remember that his performance did come in summer league.
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In his Las Vegas debut, Victor Wembanyama shot just 2-for-13 from the field in an extremely-underwhelming showing. Three years later, he may be the best player in the NBA.
Okay — disclaimer out of the way. Now let's overreact to Hansen's near-flawless appearance.
This is the Yang many were anticipating would show up during his rookie campaign after he shined in summer league last year.
He was highly efficient, shooting 7-of-8 from the field and finishing as the contest's leading rebounder. Yang also got plenty of opportunities to handle the ball, evidenced by his five assists and four turnovers.
The turnovers are certainly an area that will need to improve for Portland to feel comfortable deploying Yang to the fullest of his capabilities — especially with the amount of ball handlers first-year head coach Micah Nori will be able to choose from.
Damian Lillard is going to dominate possessions. So is Ja Morant. Deni Avdija will have the ball in his hands plenty, too.
But if Yang can continue to look as comfortable as he has thus far, he may just be able to carve out quite an important role for Nori.
Imagine the dynamic layer that could be added to Portland's starting five if Yang one day becomes fully unlocked.
He'd have All-Star-level guards able to find him when open, another All-Star on the wing who can do virtually everything, and a 7-foot-2 anchor manning the middle and absorbing physical matchups.
At this point, there's no question of whether or not Yang would be surrounded with the resources he'd need to continue adapting to the NBA level.
The question remains if he can do so on a consistent basis against established, veteran talent. Right now, he's torching rookies, second-year players and league-hopefuls — which is still impressive.
But Blazers fans saw this movie last year. They don't want a straight-to-streaming sequel. They want a theatrical release.
Yang's second season should be that theatrical release, assuming he earns the opportunity to star in it.
He struggled to crack the rotation as a rookie, but with Nori now in charge — a coach who helped develop Naz Reid into one of the NBA's most versatile offensive bigs — Yang's strong summer could finally translate into meaningful minutes.