{"id":162013,"date":"2025-10-11T10:13:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T14:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=162013"},"modified":"2025-10-11T10:13:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-11T14:13:50","slug":"portland-trail-blazers-3-burning-questions-heading-2025-26-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/10\/11\/portland-trail-blazers-3-burning-questions-heading-2025-26-season\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Burning Questions For Blazers Heading Into 2025-26 Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the Portland Trail Blazers are in the rebuild<\/em> category, they have a medley of developing young talents. It’s also worth noting that their front office hired Mike Schmitz, one of the most popular and successful draft experts, to be their assistant general manager back in May 2022<\/a>. However, every season has to come to an end sometime, and patience for Portland’s rebuild is starting to wear thin.<\/p>\n

With all of that in mind, the Blazers face three burning questions as they head into the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

3 Burning Questions For Blazers Heading Into 2025-26 Season<\/h2>\n

Shaedon Sharpe Starting?<\/h3>\n

In the four drafts that have taken place since Schmitz was brought on board, Portland has added several promising prospects. However, the inaugural pick of the Schmitz era was Canadian wing Shaedon Sharpe<\/a>, who had committed to Kentucky but never played a game for the Wildcats. Fast forward to today, and Sharpe has just wrapped up his second preseason exhibition of 2025-26. In two games, he’s averaging 19.5 points and 6.0 rebounds per game while shooting 51.7% from the field and 42.9% from 3. Each of those numbers represents preseason career-highs for him.<\/p>\n

Of course, a player’s bones aren’t made in the preseason. However, people are the sum of all their moments, making it impossible to say these performances are irrelevant. That’s particularly true of a player like Sharpe, who may be their most naturally gifted player. In fact, Sharpe averaged a career-high 18.5 points per game in 2024-25. Thus, there’s no question that he’s pretty skilled, but there is a question of whether he’ll start in 2025-26. To that point, he’s started only 92 of his 184 career NBA games. He was also demoted from the starting lineup last winter due to Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups’s issues with his defense.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, it does appear that Sharpe will enter the season as a starter. He’s done so well in training camp and preseason that he’s earning rave reviews<\/a> from teammates and Billups. Not only is he playing under control and having his way on offense, he’s competing on defense and crashing the glass.<\/p>\n

How Much Hansen Yang?<\/h3>\n

The Blazers caught a lot of people by surprise when they opted to draft Yang Hansen<\/a> (note that Hansen is his first name and Yang is his family name) with the 16th overall pick<\/a> in the 2025 NBA Draft. The true draft sickos were well aware of who Yang was. In January, the 7-foot-1 center had hired Klutch Sports to represent him<\/a>. Three months later, he decided to declare for the impending draft<\/a>. However, he certainly wasn’t a household name, even with the growing fascination with foreign products.<\/p>\n

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No. 16 overall pick Yang Hansen shined in Portland’s preseason win tonight!<\/p>\n

\ud83c\udfc0 16 points
\n\ud83c\udfc0 4 rebounds
\n\ud83c\udfc0 3 blocks pic.twitter.com\/StBBpTRpAo<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 NBA (@NBA) October 11, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n