'It's Not Bad to Have Pressure': Yang Hansen Opens Up About Rookie Struggles, Goals for the Future

📍LAS VEGAS — The most obvious change from last July to this one is how much less help Yang Hansen has, or needs.

Last summer, after the Trail Blazers made what could be the most surprising first-round pick of the 21st century by taking an unknown 7-foot-1 center prospect from China No. 16 overall, Yang's translator, Chris Liu, was a constant presence around the team. The two of them developed a buddy-comedy routine throughout the season, where the rookie would nudge his interpreter into including more slang terms in his translations to show his goofy sense of humor, which endeared him to fans even though he played very little.

Liu is no longer with the Blazers. The organization's plan since drafting Yang was to only have a translator for his rookie season, hoping to see exactly the kind of improvement he's made now having been in the United States for a full year.

During the first part of Yang's second Summer League, what little translating he needed with reporters was handled by Jim Jiang, his agent with Klutch Sports. Last week, when we met up at the Wynn hotel on the Las Vegas strip for the first true one-on-one interview Yang has ever done in English, it was Mike Gao, a social media manager with NBA China, that filled in on translation duties.

"It’s tough for me because my English is not very good," Yang said. "But for me, it’s a new challenge."

He isn't giving himself enough credit. Yang spoke virtually no English when he got to Portland a year ago. Today, while he still isn't fluent, he can have a basic conversation without much help. His understanding of basketball terminology is far more advanced—even during last season, he'd frequently talk in-depth on the sideline with Blazers teammates or coaches while Liu wasn't around. He's continuing to take lessons weekly with an online tutor the team provides for him.

During our 30-minute conversation last Tuesday, Yang only needed to rely on a translator sparingly, for help with a word or two in a sentence here and there, and Gao pushed him to speak in English as much as possible.

Our interview came the day after Yang's dominant 18-point, 10-rebound, five-assist performance in the Blazers' July 13 Summer League win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, the kind of performance that made him a social-media sensation last July and showed the unique offensive skillset that led Portland's front office to go as far outside of consensus as they did to take him in the first round.

Going into year two of what Blazers executives dubbed "Project Hansen" during the secretive predraft scouting process, it's still unclear how far away Yang is from producing at the NBA level the way he has at Summer League and in the G League, but the growth a year in is evident.

And now, he's comfortable enough to reflect, in his second language, on all of it: the struggles of adjusting to the physicality of the NBA as a rookie, the pressure of living up to the expectations of hundreds of millions of Chinese fans who haven't had a player of their own to root for in years, and his excitement about playing with Damian Lillard next season.

"I'm more used to the situation now," he said as he squeezed his 7-foot-1 frame into a small couch in a side room of the lobby of the hotel.