Thirty-seven points on nineteen shots from a twenty-four-year-old rookie who spent three seasons on the junior-college circuit completely changes the ceiling of Golden State’s offense. When the Warriors sat Stephen Curry and Draymond Green on Sunday night for the front end of a back-to-back against the Los Angeles Clippers, the schedule looked like a scheduled punt. Instead, No. 11 overall pick Yaxel Lendeborg turned Chase Center into his personal showcase, dropping 37 points on 13-of-19 shooting and burying six of his eleven three-point attempts in a 124-112 victory that pushed Golden State’s winning streak to four straight after an 0-3 start.
Ever since Jimmy Butler tore his ACL last January, my biggest fear with this Warriors roster has been the brutal math of non-Steph minutes. In my personal Hierarchy of Roster Construction Traps, asking a veteran point guard to generate every single advantage across eighty-two games sits right at the top, next to Walt and Jesse trying to cook with a dead RV battery in the *Breaking Bad* desert. Golden State desperately needed a wing who could manufacture his own shot without needing three off-ball screens and a prayer, and seven games into his professional life, Lendeborg is averaging 22.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 3.7 assists on 52 percent shooting from the floor.
“Whenever Steph’s not in the game, it’s my opportunity to try to be the leader, be the main guy on the team,” Lendeborg told reporters after the win, per ESPN.
Four Pull-Up Threes Proved the Pre-Draft Label Wrong
Lendeborg entered the draft with a reputation as a skilled, do-everything connector best suited to play an ancillary role, after he reached the 30-point mark just once across 112 career college games. That skepticism made total sense on paper for a guy who averaged only one three-point attempt per game during his two seasons at UAB before former Michigan assistant Mike Boynton and head coach Dusty May pushed him to small forward and raised his volume to 4.5 attempts per night.
Then you check the actual mechanics of how Lendeborg scored his 37 points on Sunday, and the ancillary-piece ceiling evaporates. Per the game breakdown, four of his six made three-pointers against the Clippers came off the dribble, including a third-quarter barrage that had Curry losing his mind on the bench. When a 6-foot-10 forward can bring the ball up into a live dribble, force a switch or catch a big man in drop coverage, and elevate into a rhythm pull-up three with a high release point that perimeter defenders cannot contest, the geometry of the entire half-court offense flips. You no longer have to run split-action marathons just to manufacture a clean look when the primary engine sits.
“We knew he was a good shooter,” Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said postgame, via ESPN. “When he came into work out for us in June, you could see the skill. But I didn’t expect what I saw tonight.”
Kerr also pointed out that the NBA game is still moving fast for his rookie and that Lendeborg barely knows the league’s nuances yet. Think about how terrifying that is for the rest of the Western Conference… a rookie who only made his first off-the-dribble three in college against Maryland last season is already joining Wilt Chamberlain and Rick Barry as the only players in franchise history to post two 30-point games in their first seven career appearances. Even better,Sunday’s eruption came two days after Lendeborg scored just six points and fouled out against the Lakers on Friday, proving follow-through on the exact mentality he showed during his 31-point breakout in Denver on October 27, when he started 0-for-5 from deep and refused to turn down the sixth look.
The Late-Game Chase for Forty Showed His Real Wiring
My favorite subplot from Sunday night happened in the final three minutes, when the basketball gods briefly threatened to punish Golden State for getting greedy. With the Warriors at the free-throw line nursing a comfortable lead, teammates De’Anthony Melton (who chipped in 21 points of his own) and Will Richard got in Lendeborg’s ear and told him to hunt the last three points he needed to hit 40. Lendeborg forced up three tough triples, bricked all three, and watched the Clippers trim the deficit before Kerr yanked him to secure the win.
“I’ve never been a stat chaser in my life,” Lendeborg said afterward, per ESPN. “Falling into peer pressure like I did just now was bad on my part. I’m a guy that loves ethical hoops. I kind of didn’t do that for the last two or three minutes.”
Give me a rookie who drops the highest single-game total by a first-year Warrior since Curry hung 42 on Portland on April 14, 2010, and immediately owns up to violating the laws of ethical hoops. Between Lendeborg’s self-creation, Brandin Podziemski stuffing the stat sheet with 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 8 assists, and a bench unit that poured in 40 points to hand the Clippers their fifth straight loss, Golden State suddenly has real teeth in the second unit.
Tonight brings the real laboratory test when the Phoenix Suns walk into Chase Center for the second half of this back-to-back with Curry and Green rested and expected back. How seamlessly will Lendeborg scale those four off-the-dribble triples into high-efficiency secondary attacks tonight when Phoenix loads two defenders onto Curry at thirty feet and dares the rookie to beat them 4-on-3?
