Event With the 16th pick, Blazers have selected Hansen Yang

If this is true and Yang ends up developing to a starting level center Cronin/Schmitz will look like genius'

Would love for them to prove that. I'd heavily bet the under though.

 

What I meant was it is meaningless. Put Jakucionis over there against that competition and he probably looks like Michael Jordan.

The American players on Yangs team were 2nd round scrubs in the NBA.

 

Does the tariff we have to pay to bring him over count against the cap?

 

With all these teams that have GM and a boss thats "Pres of operations" or whatever there might effectively be more than 33. Not to mention the meddling owners, or meddling owners friends such as Kolde.

 

Hansen talk starts around 15min mark from back in April and I think Barlow knows his stuff.

Was this a reach? Probably, but we don't know what teams potentially wanted him and we have a young player at every position. If they feel he was BPA then I trust it. Looking back at rest of first round, I really don't see anyone we absolutely needed and Fleming is still there in R2.

 

I guess. Still don't like that value though. We don't know if someone else would have taken him but I would have loved one more trade down if it was at all possible.

 

Sounds like he did ok in the predraft workouts, against other NBA prospects.

 

With our minimal knowledge, it feels like they could've risked moving down. However, there is clearly no way of knowing. I'd assume the front office people on the phones have a better feel than us, Screaming A Smith, or Twitter.

 

I haven't read through this thread in full because I was driving, but another thing to consider. How does Clingan feel about this? Not exactly a stamp of confidence to draft another Center in the first round the year after a decent rookie year.

 

I was excited when I heard Cedric Coward had been drafted. Concerned when it was apparent that there was a trade. Interested when I saw the return and still had names like Jakucionis, Flemming, Clifford, etc on the board. Then an emotion between confusion and anger when I heard the commish call out Yang Hansen.

My kneejerk response was that I hate these moves the last few days. That being said, I watch zero college hoops. Most of my opinions are formed on what I read here, some reputable mocks and occasional highlights. I form archetypes in my head based on these forms of input. Sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m wrong. I dreamed of getting Tyrus Thomas and Adam Morrison and hated the Roy and Aldridge acquisitions. I loved getting Jerryd Bayless and thought Antonio Daniels was going to set the world on fire. I also wanted Damian Lillard and Andre Drummond.

Point is, many of us don’t watch as much basketball as the pros who get paid to do so. Maybe they got the pick right. Maybe they didn’t. Right now I’m pissed, but I’m willing to see how the offseason pans out and see how the young guys look in summer league.

 

I doubt he cares too much.

If he's already worried Yang is better than him, Yang is almost certainly going to be better than him.

 

I'm very skeptical about Yang. But I was skeptical about Clingan last year and he changed my mind, to a substantial degree

what didn't change in my mind is that Clingan is not mobile and is 100% a drop coverage-C. Having two of those on a team is one too many. Portland has 3

if Yang turns out to be the best C between he and Clingan, fine. I'd be wrong about him. I don't believe he will be and I really can't see how investing a 7th and 11th pick in two slow-footed bigs is a good use of draft capital...especially after watching the NBA finals and the type of bigs those teams had

 

In the videos I’ve seen, he is a rim protector and can hit the 3.

 

Are you kidding?!
When Yao retired and Morey made a comment against the Chinese gov't, the league lost hundreds of millions of dollars. It was even discussed in the link in this thread.
This decision is 100% about money. I'd be willing to bet the decision was made for Cronin by the higher ups.
Yang is seen as a huge marketing rep in China. They have nobody else in the league. Basketball is a quickly rising sport in China and they spend a lot of money on training all the way down to grade schoolers.
The team is currently for sale and would probably sell for a relatively low number for an NBA team. But, when you realize that having the only player from an extremely heavily populated country and it doesn't take much smarts to know he is a significant asset.
The article talked about Yao and Shaq's first game against each other. It drew over 200 million viewers in China. The superbowl drew 130 million viewers.
To think that having a young, popular Chinese player on your team and the international attention he'll bring isn't gonna affect your teams value is shocking.
Watch how many jerseys sell in the next few months with his name on it. It will be surprisingly high. That is just the start of the revenue he will bring to a team that happens to be for sale.

 

"if it were true" as I posted was from the article that said Minnesota was going to take Yang at #17 the very next pick. It was explained that then Minnesota had issues and scrambled to draft a center in Beringer. So no there wouldn't have been any opportunity to trade down more.... IF that were true.

 

I'd guess if Ayton is gone he will be fine with it. Your just not ever going to have an NBA roster with ONE legit center.

Probably not real excited if he is still backing up Ayton and has Yang trying to take his limited backup minutes - plus Timelord as the small ball option.

 

I'm not kidding you. Do you think Yang has a comparible Q-Score as Yao Ming, who was easily the #1 pick in the 2002 draft?

If the Blazers were drafting Cooper Flaggshu #1 tonight, this would be a worthy conversation.

Bookmark this post and lets see if the new owners talk about the cultural value of Yang when they purchase the franchise.

 

I don't know if I buy this. Yang was going to get drafted by some NBA team. The Blazers aren't a popular franchise in China. If the NBA really wanted to maximize China revenue they would have put him on the Lakers or some franchise that has a following there. Bet most of China doesn't even know the Blazers are an NBA team.

 

the barometer is 11-15 players drafted