Yang Hansen Puts On A Show In His Trail Blazers Summer League Debut On The Brief Case, Ep 161

Yang Hansen Puts On A Show In His Trail Blazers Summer League Debut On The Brief Case, Ep 161

I mean in the game like coach told me go to high post be like playmaking player today be like hub for everyone. So I mean I just follow coach execution. and I do my job. What’s up, guys? This is Rob Will and you’re listening to the briefcase with Casey Hulldog. Greetings, Blizzard fans, and welcome to the briefcase presented by Sparemount Casino. Episode 161 of The Briefcase presented by Spiritmount Casino. The first Las Vegas Summer League 2025 edition of The Briefcase live from Las Vegas. Well, I’m recording it live obviously, but obviously you’re not watching it live. Nevertheless, I’m Casey Holdall and Trailblazers had a phenomenal start to their 2025 Las Vegas Summer League, blowing out the Golden State Warriors in the final game on Friday night at Thomas and Mack Arena. Basically, every single player on the Blazers played fairly well. But for this edition, we’re just going to kind of do it off the cuff. We’re just talking about Yong Hansen, who had an absolutely phenomenal Trailblazer debut in his first game at the Las Vegas Summer League this year. He did play the Las Vegas summer league last year as a part of the Chinese national team. This year with the Trailblazers, absolutely showing out from start to finish. Literally throws a highlight play on his first play of the game and then throughout the game just absolutely puts on a show. Everything you want to see out of a player in his rookie debut, especially a big man where summer league is often very tough for big men. So, we’ll talk about Yong Hansen’s debut on this edition of the briefcase presented by Spear Mount Casino. Well, one of the more entertaining, troubleshooting summer league games that I can remember. And I’ve been coming to summer league for good grief, maybe close to 20 years now. Easily one of the most fun games I feel like I’ve seen the Trailblazers play in Las Vegas. A lot of that had to do with the play of Young Hansen. I think obviously a lot of us, you know, we’ve seen some tape. We’ve heard kind of some of the reasons why the Blazers uh decided to make that pick, why they’ve scouted him for a couple seasons now in hopes of acquiring him. But, you know, until you actually see it in an NBA game, you know, just a little hard to to know what to make of it. You know, you see him against, you know, competition in in the Chinese Basketball Association, and that’s a good league, but, you know, not what you’re going to see in the NBA. You see him at the 19s versus a lot of guys that end up getting drafted this year with the national team. And he looked great there, too. But, you know, the national team maybe not up to snuff either. So part of that you watch those that those games in that film and you kind of wonder like is this just because Yang is the best player on this team. You see his workout in Portland or at least I saw his workout in Portland. He looked pretty good. Um but you don’t know exactly what to make of a threeon-ree workout situation. You see him at the combine. He looks pretty good there. But it’s the combine and typically kind of the the main or the higher level guys in the draft don’t play at the combine. So again, you don’t know exactly what to make of the competition that that Hansson’s been going up against. Summer leagues is a little bit like that, but obviously, you know, these are guys who are going to be playing in the NBA, NBA coaches, NBA facilities, NBA practices, NBA systems, while obviously a roster in summer league is not the same as a roster in the NBA. It’s as close as you’re going to get to it in any other forum. and Yong and the Trailblazers really just go out and and put on an absolute show versus the Warriors, beating the Golden State Warriors 10673 at Thomas and Mac Arena Friday night in the final game of the night here in Las Vegas. Blazers jump out. I think they scored the first nine points. I think they led initially I think like 23 to four or something like that. Just jumped out all over the Warriors. basically, you know, didn’t end the game, but like basically just exerted their will on the game from start to finish. Never really felt like the Warriors had any real chance to to win the game. You know, there was one point in time where I was like, “Oh, you know, the Warriors are kind of making a run here a little bit.” I looked up and it was like they were still down 15. So, you know, the Blazers really came out and did well. I think you really have to credit Ronnie Bella and the Trailblazers coaching staff for having these guys ready. But I think a lot of the reason why they were able to do what they did tonight, one round repair. You you got to mention the the play of Rion, 23 points, nine rebounds, four assists, two steals for Rion in 22 minutes. Definitely looked like the best player on the floor Friday night for either team. But really the story of the game, Young Hansen having an absolute phenomenal debut for the Trailblazers at Summer League. First play of the game, wins the jump, ball is kind of loose a little bit. Hansen gets the ball back, finds City Sissoko with a great pass for a dunk, and that literally the first play of the game, throws a highlight pass. Honestly, one of my goals for Hansen, like when I was thinking of like what would be a good summer league for Hansen, it was basically being able to keep up with the pace of the game, which it seems like it did a very good job of, you know, I think as the game went on, maybe got a little bit winded, but like both teams were playing super fast, tons of possessions this game, so any big man is probably going to get a little bit winded there. But for me, it was like, is he move able to move fluid around the court? Does it look like he he understands what’s going on? And if he throws three or four highlight passes over the entire course of summer league, I’ll feel pretty good about what what we saw out of out of Hansen at Las Vegas. He did all of that in one game. Not only was he just throwing phenomenal dimes, but from the rip, he’s pointing guys where they should go. He’s directing traffic. He he’s he’s talking to guys on the bench. He’s got his arm on guys on the bench. Like he’s blocking shots. He he he got a block and then they called it a foul and he did like the I can’t believe you called a foul on that which like shows an advanced level of NBA skill right there. I think he committed six fouls which is exactly what you want to see out of a big man at summer league. You got a lot of fouls. You get 10 fouls at summer league. You might as well use him. They he played physical like the idea that maybe like the game would be too physical or too fast for for Hansen. Definitely not the case at any point in time in that game. Always looked comfortable. always looked like he he was dictating what either team was doing on either end on the defensive end, protecting the rim, blocking shots, doing a really good job, too of getting back into the paint, coming out defending at the three-point line, then getting back in into the paint to defend the rim. I thought he did a phenomenal job of that. His handle and his drives much much better than I would have expected. He had multiple drives from the three-point line, not only straight line drives, but you know, kind of doing the back and forth like use using his body to to create some space and then getting to the rim. He had a euroep that he just smoked the layup. Otherwise, it would have been a phenomenal highlight. The gym went crazy even with the make missing it. He had a great kind of spin move to a to a right-hand finish at the rim as well. Um hit a and banked in a three-pointer uh after James Pnight was like, “Hey, just let it fly. Shoot it, man. just just shoot it. Don’t don’t worry about it. Just shoot it. Phenomenal stuff from from Hansen. And I I think and then you had the passes, too, which were just like ridiculous passes that he was throwing, you know, finding guy like using his his size, understanding where guys are going to be at. It was really an impressive performance for for Hansen. Both again in terms of his scoring, his passing I I think obviously was the most impressive part for me. his ability to get to the rim using his dribble, which, you know, I I did not expect him to to have that necessarily at this point in time. You know, he did get stripped a couple times, but just the way he was able to get to the rim looked fantastic. And then the defense, he played as well. I I I it didn’t ever look to me like he was out of position or or was frustrated by by the speed or or people’s ability to get into his body. He used his body to finish multiple times through contact, which I think obviously is a fantastic thing to see for for a young player. Um, you know, I had a I wouldn’t say pressure like did just, you know, there’s a lot of people that are interested in in what Hanson’s doing here. Obviously, you know, you got Blazer fans who always really interested in in their rookies and when you have a rookie who’s kind of in an unknown like Hansen is, you know, the fans are going to be kind of interested to find out kind of what what the deal with that is. And then you have the international fans, the Chinese fans who are stoked to have, you know, one of their countrymen playing in the NBA. And when he got introduced, huge ovation. Anytime he came out of the game, huge ovation. Anytime he made any kind of play, people went crazy. both Blazer fans, Chinese fans who are now Blazer fans, everyone who is now a Yong Hansen fan, like the he and it the other part too is like he just seemed like he was having so much fun out there, you know, and sometimes I feel like especially big men like feels like they be kind of brooding sometimes or or like they get frustrated, you know, sometimes they don’t get the ball as much as they would like. They’re defending and they’re running hard but they’re kind of not getting rewarded for it on the other end. That’s obviously not the case with Hansen because he’s got the ability to run an offense. And just the the excitement that he seemed like he played with like he had a smile on his face. He’s on the bench like I said cracking jokes. Um you know he went and at the half he went and high-fived all of the Trailblazers roster guys were there. I mean I it was Denny and Donovan and Scoot and Shaden and Tummani and basically a ton of guys. all the guys who were in Las Vegas already sitting courtside watching what Hansen was doing getting excited too. I I think I think the players on the team just as curious to see kind of what Hansen can do as the fans. Um because you know those guys you know they they’ve seen him in practices. I’ve watched a lot of the practices too. He’s looked great. It didn’t look like that in practices from from what I saw. he looked very good, but like you just don’t get the same juice in a practice even when you’re playing five on five as you do when you’re playing against another team. And so I think for the players, you know, I think there’s probably like they want to see like what what’s the deal with this guy? Like what what do we kind of have here? And I would suspect that all the roster guys who watched that game left it being like think I don’t know what they thought about Hansen before. you know, guys in the NBA know how tough the NBA is. And so, generally, I think they always assume that like rookies and especially guys that maybe they haven’t heard of before. You know, those guys are maybe going to struggle a bit, maybe not be able to to kind of see significant minutes in their first season. If guys thought that at the beginning of that game, I’m not entirely sure they thought that at the end of the game. And I will say too, don’t want to get too far over our skis here. don’t want to want to make too much of the performance, what it means going forward, but he looked really good and there’s no reason to not feel excited about what you saw from Hansen and from the Trailblazers in general in that first game. Um, how much of it you’re going to see in the regular season, you know, we’ll worry about that later. But again, for a first opportunity, fantastic game for for Hansen. Let’s just go ahead and read off some of his stats. Only took seven shots, hit three of those. went one of three from three for 10 points, four rebounds, five assists, one steal, three blocks in 23 minutes, had three turnovers, but none of those were live ball turnovers. They were all offensive fouls. So, the fact that he was throwing the passes he was throwing, getting those five assists, and not turning the ball over with his passing, that’s a phenomenal sign. 23 minutes, very good minutes for for a first game. Again, it’s hard to point to anything and be like, “Boy, I wish Hansen had done this better.” Like it I mean, when we’re talking to him postgame, you know, he was obviously saying like, “Yeah, you know, I wish there was things I I could have done better.” Um, but from where I’m sitting, I I couldn’t pick out a whole lot of things. And and kind of the other thing I wanted to mention, too, was just that, you know, a huge collection of media to to talk to Hansen. I would say at least 25 to 30 international media, you know, and so obviously Hans’s been playing for a while now. It’s not like, you know, he’s played in in some big competitions. He’s played internationally. He’s played domestically. So, you know, I don’t think necessarily like he’s going to kind of shrink under the lights or anything, but when you’re a 20-year-old and you got a whole lot of people asking you questions, you know, when we had the the practice in uh here in Las Vegas on Thursday, a huge collection of media. So at that point in time, it’s like he knows like there are a lot of eyes on me right now. And he probably already knew that anyways. But when you talk after practice and there’s 30 people waiting to ask you questions at that point in time, you can’t there there’s no hiding it. It’s like you know that like there there are a lot of people watching you. There’s a lot of eyeballs. There’s a lot of interest in you. And you know that can affect some guys a certain way. It does not seem to affect Hansen at all. like again just as like bright and like spirited as he is, you know, that’s it’s just a it’s a great thing to see and like that’s exactly what you want out of a young player particularly because you know there’s going to be hard times like he had a great game tonight, a great debut with the Trailblazers, but there are going to be there are going to be difficult times. There’s going to be stumbles. There’s going to be you’re you’re going to struggle as a rook in the NBA. That’s going to happen. But if you can just keep a a positive outlook, you’re going to be okay. And and Hansen seems like a guy to me who who he has that disposition to where like I’m not at all concerned if he struggles that that is going to really affect him in his kind of preparation and and the way that he views himself, which is a a really good thing. So, you know, I just a whole lot of reasons again be really excited what we saw from Hansen. And I think, you know, to kind of wrap it up as well, Joe Cronin, Mike Schmidtz, Sergey Olivia, the entire Trailblazers scouting staff, analytical staff, you know, I don’t I’m sure there are a lot of questions at least nationally about like what are these guys doing for them to make that pick and feel confident about it? And they feel incredibly confident about it before this game. They were so sure of what they of the work that they put in and what they saw and the data they were able to collect and and synthesize and the tape that they watched and just over and over and over again like when they s again when they saw him in in China he looked great. When they saw him at the 19s he looked great. When they saw him at the combine looked great. Saw him in the workout looked great. And so at that point they’re like, “Hey, we’d almost be talking ourselves out of this at this point because we really like what we’ve seen out of this guy.” And so for him to come out and have as great of a game as he did in his first game, albeit at summer league has to be especially validating to the trailers front office because again and I I think you Bert as well like I think all those guys really you know that that’s not an easy thing to do to to Zigg when everyone else is zagging when no one else necessarily at least publicly had him going in the first round privately. You’re hearing more and more that teams, particularly at the end of the first round, were maybe kind of hoping that he might fall there. I’ve already heard from other people who work for other teams who are like, “Oh, yeah, we kind of thought he was pretty good.” And I was like, “Yeah, okay. That’s easy enough to say now.” But for them to to make that pick, like that’s courageous. Like, you know that you’re going to get criticism. You know that if it doesn’t work out, you’re going to get quite a bit of blame for that. And we’re a long ways away from saying it worked out or it didn’t work out, but just again as a first blush, as a as an initial opportunity to see what Hansen can do, for him to play as well as he did and for the Blazers to win so dramatically, again, 10673. If you’re Portland’s front office, I think you’re leaving that gym tonight feeling pretty good about yourself and maybe not patting yourself on the back, but maybe definitely feeling like feel very good about the work we put in on this. And I’m glad to see that uh that it looks like at least initially we made a pretty smart decision. And that’s going to do it for this edition of the briefcase. Thank you so much for joining me. As always, I will be back with more additions potentially after the game on Saturday versus the Grizzlies. Um, but if not, definitely on Sunday. Team has an off day, so we’ll we’ll kind of check back in at that point in time. Recap what’s happened in summer league since then. Um, quite a bit of news as well too that we’re not even getting to. Trailblazers is hiring James Posey to add to their coaching staff. I feel like Chanty Phillips has done a phenomenal job kind of remaking his coaching staff. a lot of really interesting hires, a lot of really smart, savvy coaches who, you know, I’ve gotten to know a little bit here at summer league. Just a there really seems like they’re they’re putting a lot of emphasis into that and I think that that really means something. So, we we’ll talk about that. We’ll talk about the play of some of the other guys on the Trailblazers roster at Summer League. Hopefully, we’ll have more to talk about Hansen as well because it would be great to see him come out and have another great performance on the second round of backtoback here in Las Vegas. But until then, thank you so much for joining me. As always, please like and subscribe wherever you get your podcast. I’m Casey Holdall. Go Blazers.

On this edition of the Brief Case, presented by Spirit Mountain Casino, Trail Blazers beat reporter/Insider, on location in Las Vegas, discusses…

• Yang Hansen’s Trail Blazers Summer League debut Friday night in a blowout victory versus the Warriors at Thomas & Mack Arena on the campus of UNLV

• Not being exactly sure what to expect from Hansen in his first game playing with NBA players

• Hansen getting a highlight on the first play of the game

• Directing traffic as a 20 year old rookie

• The passing, handle and defense Yang Hansen displayed

• The reaction in the arena and the large contingent of media following Hansen in Las Vegas

• Being surprised by the quality of Hansen’s dribble drives

• Portland’s front office having cause to feel validated in acquiring Hansen in the first round when no one (publicly) had him getting drafted before the second round

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