How much do the Trail Blazers adore Yang Hansheng? Two key players unusually learning Chinese for him; team insider says he brings long-awaited hope.

On October 13th Beijing time, Trail Blazers reporter Mike Richman talked about Yang Hansheng on his podcast. He mentioned Yang’s standout 5 minutes in the third quarter and expressed that it gave the Blazers a long-missed hope. Richman also shared an observation from the locker room where Lillard and Avdić were seen practicing Chinese. Here are the main points from Richman’s podcast—

In the second preseason game, Yang Hansheng scored 16 points, grabbed 4 rebounds, and blocked 3 shots. Although he struggled early like many young players, those 5 minutes in the third quarter showcased his full potential — passing, shooting, ball-handling advantage due to his height, and a crucial block at the end thanks to smart positioning.

Of course, those 5 minutes don’t prove everything, but what everyone really wants isn’t “proof,” it’s “hope.”— a moment that people can hold onto and firmly believe is “something special.” How high Yang Hansheng’s ceiling is will depend on his regular season performance. The NBA season is long and fundamentally “performance-driven”: playing well earns more minutes and higher pay. What level he ultimately reaches still needs time to tell. But I suddenly realized,Blazers fans haven’t had this kind of “pure hope” for a very long time. For ages, no one truly believed the team would improve.

During those 5 minutes, we finally understood why the Blazers picked him. Previously, I thought the Blazers might have to rely heavily on small lineups this season, try different tactics, and hope Robert Williams recovers quickly. It’s not that I don’t want to see Yang Hansheng play — on the contrary, I want him to get more minutes — but if the team wants to stay competitive, giving a 20-year-old rookie a lot of playing time is a huge risk.

It’s clear,Yang Hansheng is a player who needs confidence.But confidence is a strange thing — it can’t simply be given by others. It’s like a special “currency”: you can build it through hard work, but you can’t get it out of thin air, nor is it easy to actively “earn” by yourself. Once you have it, though, it completely changes your performance.

Before this game, there was an interesting moment in the Blazers’ locker room. Avdić came in. No one was interviewing him, but he suddenly shouted a sentence in Chinese across the room. Yang Hansheng wasn’t there at the time, but his translator Chris was, and Chris replied, “Nice, your pronunciation is very accurate, you’re learning well.”

Lillard was also in the locker room. Upon hearing this, he immediately perked up — he actually knew what the sentence meant and shouted back to Avdić. The two practiced their pronunciation together, while Chris encouraged them: “Yes, exactly like that, very good.” Then Lillard said another sentence in Chinese. He explained, “I didn’t know what the first sentence meant and felt shy to ask since they weren’t speaking to me. But this one means ‘Good morning,’I want to learn something more complex than just ‘hello’ — saying ‘hello’ all the time is too simple. I want to be able to communicate with my new teammate in his native language.””

This kind of situation is actually quite rare. When Avdić joined last year, no one said, “I want to learn Hebrew.” When Kamara came, no one said, “I want to learn French to communicate better.” But with Yang Hansheng, teammates are proactively learning Chinese, which shows his special status on the team — he’s not just a rookie, but a player with global influence, and China’s massive fanbase brings him significant attention.

More importantly, all this happened before he even had a standout performance — people aren’t fawning over him because “he plays well,” but genuinely want to help him integrate: into the Blazers’ culture, American culture, and the team family. Compared to other rookies I’ve encountered, Yang Hansheng’s integration process is taken more seriously and can even be called a “priority task” for the team.

Two core players practicing Chinese on their own while he’s off the court, shouting learned phrases across the locker room — this scene is special precisely because of Yang Hansheng’s uniqueness.It’s been a long time since a Chinese player with both talent and global impact has appeared. For the Blazers, he is not only the hope for the future but if the team wants to make progress this season, Yang Hansheng at least needs to be a player who doesn’t hold them back. He will definitely get many opportunities.

And this small detail of teammates voluntarily learning Chinese is the “soft power” helping him fit in — although it doesn’t guarantee future success, it shows everyone is working toward the same goal,which is crucial for a new player. Often, when new players join a team, they don’t always feel this kind of goodwill.