The night Yaxel Lendeborg declared he'd "lost all respect" for Luka Dončić, agent Ron Shade and personal trainer Aaron Johnson were at the Warriors' season opener in Los Angeles and sprang into action. They went to talk with him.
Mentor Josh Lane followed up later that night. The former director of player relations at the University of Alabama Birmingham was momentarily concerned. Maybe he shouldn't have said that; it was his first NBA game, after all. So Lane texted Lendeborg something in the vein of: Man, what?
"We know when we can kinda talk him out of different things, and then we know there's certain things that he's just convicted on," Lane said. "That was one of those things he was just convicted on. Like, 'Man, I said what I said.'"
Those around Lendeborg have accepted that this is who he is, and to try to get him second-guessing himself would be the worst outcome. This is all part of the same package, an 18-year-old kid in a 24-year-old's body, as Lane put it. Lendeborg is driving through some of the best players in the world with abandon, and doing it with an awareness of his own faults that is endearing him to the rest of Golden State's locker room.
The honesty and the personality, though, mean he's taken the NBA by viral storm. He went after Dončić after Game 1 and defended his words later. Then, after dropping 31 points against the Nuggets in Golden State's first win Monday night, Lendeborg said he "would've cried" if the Warriors lost again. On Wednesday night in Minnesota, he pointed at himself for seven turnovers while also saying an aggressive Timberwolves team wasn't playing "real defense."
#lendeborg #golden #talk
Mentor Josh Lane followed up later that night. The former director of player relations at the University of Alabama Birmingham was momentarily concerned. Maybe he shouldn't have said that; it was his first NBA game, after all. So Lane texted Lendeborg something in the vein of: Man, what?
"We know when we can kinda talk him out of different things, and then we know there's certain things that he's just convicted on," Lane said. "That was one of those things he was just convicted on. Like, 'Man, I said what I said.'"
Those around Lendeborg have accepted that this is who he is, and to try to get him second-guessing himself would be the worst outcome. This is all part of the same package, an 18-year-old kid in a 24-year-old's body, as Lane put it. Lendeborg is driving through some of the best players in the world with abandon, and doing it with an awareness of his own faults that is endearing him to the rest of Golden State's locker room.
The honesty and the personality, though, mean he's taken the NBA by viral storm. He went after Dončić after Game 1 and defended his words later. Then, after dropping 31 points against the Nuggets in Golden State's first win Monday night, Lendeborg said he "would've cried" if the Warriors lost again. On Wednesday night in Minnesota, he pointed at himself for seven turnovers while also saying an aggressive Timberwolves team wasn't playing "real defense."
#lendeborg #golden #talk
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