The Trail Blazers officially announced the demotion of Yang Hansen: he will make his G League debut this Saturday and will play consecutively against the Suns and Lakers.

On November 14th Beijing time, the Portland Trail Blazers officially announced that Yang Hansen has been sent down to their G League affiliate, the Rip City Remix. He is set to appear in the matches this Saturday against the Valley Suns and next Monday versus the South Bay Lakers.

Unlike his earlier two stints which were just for training purposes, this time Yang Hansen will be able to compete in games with the Remix. After missing out on playing time for six straight games, this is a major positive development for him. He finally gets the chance to prove his skills through actual competition and prepare for a return to the Trail Blazers’ rotation. So far this season, Yang has only appeared in 5 NBA regular season games, averaging 1.8 points and 0.8 rebounds with a shooting percentage of 22.2%.

Previously, Trail Blazers reporter Richman had predicted that Yang might be assigned between December 2nd and 11th — a period when the Remix will play five consecutive home games without long travel, allowing team management and coaches to closely monitor his performance while he gains significant game experience in a short time.

Now it appears the team has decided to send Yang to experience G League competition earlier so he can get game minutes as soon as possible. Head coach Chauncey Billups also mentioned in a recent interview that Yang has been putting in extra practice lately and expressed satisfaction with his professional attitude.

Richman noted that although the overall competitive level of the G League is not very high and the scarcity of seven-footers means it cannot fully replicate NBA-level competition for Yang, it at least provides ample playing time for him.

We will get to see how Yang performs in the G League starting tomorrow (Saturday) when he makes his debut.