Warriors get a good player in Yaxel Lendeborg, but still need something great

SAN FRANCISCO — Blame this one on Giannis Antetokounmpo.

And the irony of that. The whale the Golden State Warriors couldn’t corral, the pipe dream they never manifested, wound up biting them in the first round of the 2026 NBA Draft.

Milwaukee, owners of the No. 10 pick, added the No. 13 pick to its bounty with the trade of Antetokounmpo to Miami on Monday. The expectation: the Bucks would take Nate Ament from Tennessee at 10. So when Atlanta took Houston guard Kingston Flemings at No. 8 and Dallas selected Michigan forward Morez Johnson Jr. at No. 9, the Warriors thought they had their guy.

But having acquired a second lottery pick one day earlier, Milwaukee could be greedy. And they did. The Bucks selected the best player on the board at No. 10 — Arizona guard Brayden Burries — knowing they could get Ament at No. 13. And they did.

Yaxel Lendeborg is one of the best high-leverage role player bets in the 2026 NBA Draft

Sam Vecenie

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That’s how close the Warriors came to landing Burries, a player they believed had star potential. A player who had the skills to create a new dynamic in their offense without sacrificing defense. Someone with the size and strength — 6-foot-4, 215 pounds — to handle a workload right away. Someone with the pedigree — California player of the year, McDonald’s All-American, Final Four appearance — to absorb the complexities of their style of play. He could reasonably contribute as a rookie and, at 20, possessed the growth potential to be a core piece for the future.

The Warriors got close enough to think they’d finally caught a break. But Burries got picked.

Fortunately for Golden State, they wound up with an ideal fit. A safe pick. But a good one.

Because Yaxel Lendeborg is Warriors basketball. The epitome of the type of players they love.

Smart. Versatile. Competitive. Physical. Skilled. Unselfish. High basketball IQ. He’s the kind of player head coach Steve Kerr could grow to trust. The kind of player Draymond Green could get behind. The kind who will do the things Steph Curry will come to appreciate.

“He was a top guy for us on the board at the time,” said Mike Dunleavy, the Warriors’ head of basketball operations. “So that’s why we picked him. This is a guy who historically is off the charts in terms of his production at his age. There’s basically never been a player this good at his age. So it’s unique for us to evaluate. But I think we felt like to get him and add him into what we have just checks a lot of boxes. You know, the dribble-pass-shoot stuff and the defensive stuff. He does a little bit of everything while adding tremendous size.”

But Lendeborg doesn’t look like the Warriors’ solution. He’s a reinforcement of the status quo. An upgrade of the role players they’ve made work over the last few years. They can certainly use him. He figures to be good for the Warriors. But Golden State needed something more than reinforcements. They needed star potential. They needed a different dynamic. They need a player who can tilt the floor, create offense when the system stalls and be the driving force when Curry is out.

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The lottery is where you find those types of players. But unless Lendeborg turns out to be a star, this will be four lottery picks in six years, and the Warriors will have come away with, at best, a good role player who can be a starter depending on lineups. One of those players, Moses Moody, is recovering from a significant knee injury. The other two are gone. James Wiseman turned into Gary Payton II and Jonathan Kuminga turned into Kristaps Porziņġis, who may not be on the Warriors this coming season.

Yaxel Lendeborg averaged over 15 points and nearly 7 rebounds last season for the national champion Michigan Wolverines. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

That’s what makes the 2026 draft a continuation of the Warriors’ recent streak of underwhelming and misfortune. Massive injuries impacting next season. No lottery to shoot them up the draft. On the sidelines for massive deals, like Giannis, and middleweight deals like Ayo Dosunmu and Coby White, and minor deals like Aaron Wiggins. No real assets to make moves. And now, in a draft with a clear top tier of 11 players deep, they get the 11th-best player.

And he will be 24 years old when the season starts.

“I’m not worried because he’s not 38,” Dunleavy said with a smile.

That’s not nothing. Curry will turn 39 this season. Green and Jimmy Butler will turn 37. Lendeborg being 24 actually helps the Warriors. He’s old enough to be ready to play now on a team full of guys who will (and should) miss time.

Also, Lendeborg might be good. He might be really good.

His size is legitimate: 6-foot-9, 241 pounds with a 7-foot-4 wingspan. Gui Santos became a revelation for the Warriors with his production in the margins, and he’s 6-foot-7, 185 pounds. Lendeborg is bigger and better at the things that made Santos a viable role player. Plus, he can do some of what Green does, and perhaps some of what Al Horford does.

He’s also tougher than a well-done steak out of the microwave. He spent three years at the junior college level before two years at UAB before transferring to Michigan. He got it out the mud, as the kids say.

“My mom. She pretty much put me on this path,” Lendeborg told reporters in New York. “So there’s many times where I wanted to give up and I wanted to quit and I would think, ‘How would my mom feel about this?’ She always kept the extra chip on my shoulder and extra motivation. I feel like just the fact that nobody believed in (me) and nobody saw my talents, or thought that I could amount to something, definitely made me want to go out there and show everybody else that even if you were a five-star (recruit) from Day 1, I’m going to go out there and outwork you.”

Yaxel Lendeborg goes 11 to Golden State

William Pogatsias

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He was good enough for the Warriors not to trade down and take someone with star potential but who may not be ready to contribute right away. Players like Ament and Cameron Carr out of Baylor figure to need time to develop and fill out their frames. Or players such as Ebuka Okorie out of Stanford and Labaron Philon Jr. out of Alabama have the explosive skill but continue the Warriors tradition of sacrificing size for skill.

So they went with the best available on their board, the national champion from Michigan.

Side note: It didn’t sound like the Warriors were high on Aday Mara, the 7-foot-3 center from Michigan, even though he could’ve been the new dynamic they needed. Dunleavy said they had 11 players they wanted on their list, just as many experts considered this draft’s elite crop to be 11 players deep, so it was an easy choice to pick Lendeborg. Dunleavy said the viral video of him and owner Joe Lacob seemingly disagreeing about something was about Lacob wanting his general manager to hurry up and make Lendeborg the pick, and Dunleavy reminding him they had five minutes. Mara went after that, to Oklahoma City at No. 12.

Lendeborg should eat minutes right away because he does so many things winning teams need. And with the Warriors starting next season with two starters on the injured list, and Green closer to 40 than Lendeborg is to 20, the rookie will get plenty of opportunity to play.

“That’s the beauty of him. I think he can play everything,” Dunleavy said. “I think he can guard. I mean, there’s a potential he can guard (all five positions), and then offensively, I think he’s a forward. He’s a four that could play some small-ball center. Just the way he handles the ball, there’s some backcourt ball-handling responsibilities he can take care of. I think the intrigue with this pick for us is the versatility.”

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Overall 9 Forward 3

Yaxel Lendeborg Michigan

Versatile two-way forward who is older but possesses elite tools and winning mindset.

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Maybe he winds up better than the scouting report suggests. Maybe the jumper comes around to make defenders pay. Maybe the handle sharpens so he can create off the dribble and not just feast on off-the-ball action. Maybe his game grows into something special, like the Draymond Green 2.0 they’ve been searching for all these years, and the Warriors look smarter than everyone else for betting on their style of play. Such is possible.

But, again, he will be 24 at the end of the season.

Which means the Warriors will likely come out of this still needing a game-changer. A big swing. A dynamic they don’t have. And they will have one less tool with which to acquire such a player.

The cruel part is they might’ve had a shot at that answer. One pick from achieving hopeful instead of useful.

The Warriors didn’t blow this draft. Not by any means. But they got reminded again how thin the margin is between staying afloat and actually changing their fate. So, they still wait for their break to come.

Warriors get a good player in Yaxel Lendeborg, but still need something great

Analyse

2026-06-25 14:34:36