Yaxel Lendeborg is Far More Than Just an NBA Starter | The Morning Dunk

Yaxel Lendeborg is blossoming into far more than just a starter for the Golden State Warriors, even as a 24-year-old NBA rookie.

Nov 09, 2026

Welcome back to another edition of The Morning Dunk!

We’re a few weeks into the NBA season, and more rookies and sophomores are rounding into form and impacting their current teams.

There’s one standout in particular, though, whom I haven’t covered in detail yet and who has taken the league’s headlines by storm as he’s helped breathe some new life and optimism into a storied franchise.

Yaxel Lendeborg is this week’s Slam Dunk focus! How has his level of play changed his projection to more than just a starter, and what can he mean for the Golden State Warriors moving forward?

Let’s dive in!

All writing and stats are as of Friday, 11/6/26.

The Slam Dunk: Yaxel Lendeborg is Far More Than Just an NBA Starter

Yaxel Lendeborg broke out onto the mainstream scene last year during a spectacular college run at the University of Michigan that culminated with an NCAA title.

That season established him as a household name and certainly led to some fascinating discourse and debate over his NBA prospects.

Lendeborg is a 24-year-old rookie, and in most cases, that age has been seen as a massive deterrent when it comes to both “upside” and overall draft stock in terms of selecting that player high in the lottery.

Turns out, that level of skepticism wasn’t only shared by fans and media personalities. NBA teams didn’t take a chance on Lendeborg for one reason or another until No. 11 overall, when the Golden State Warriors swooped in to acquire a player who is now viewed as far more than just a capable starter at the NBA level.

Lendeborg’s rookie season couldn’t be going much better through nine games. He’s averaging 21 PPG, 7.1 RPG, and 4.1 APG with a 62.4% true shooting mark. Not to mention, he’s made plays on the defensive end and has shown some real versatility switching one through four, only really running into problems when he’s been stuck in the post against true centers one-on-one.

Power forwards who can dribble/pass/shoot/defend represent, to me, the most valuable non-offensive engine archetype in the game of basketball. That player in your lineup allows ultimate flexibility across all positions that primarily play outside the three-point line. With a capable center who can own the paint, there are few, if any, weaknesses to attack with a truly versatile forward in the lineup.

Golden State has had the luxury of relying on Draymond Green for years as that player who could masquerade at center in most five-out lineups, or play alongside another big when his shot was falling from the perimeter. As an exceptional ball handler and passer for his position, the flexibility within motion sets has been endless for the Warriors alongside the best shooter God has ever created in Stephen Curry.

But now, Lendeborg changes the game for this team on offense because Golden State has TWO of those forwards to lean on, particularly on offense. Lendeborg is an excellent complement to what the Warriors do well because of his skill set. He can operate in a movement-oriented offense within the halfcourt, provide shooting touch (more on that in a second), work in handoffs and two-man actions, and even attack tilted defenses as a play finisher.

Where his offensive impact gets particularly interesting, however, is with what he can do in transition. The more players that can grab a defensive rebound, push, and actually execute on the break with the ball in their hands, the better. Lendeborg is one of those players who loves to grab, attack at a thousand miles per hour, and make the right read on the break as opposed to just getting everyone started with an outlet pass. Having two guys like Lendeborg and Green who can initiate the break themselves frees up off-ball shooters like Curry and Brandin Podziemski to get to their spots and find cracks in the defense they might not otherwise find if they’re the ones having to bring the ball up themselves.

We aren’t just talking about a role player who requires everything to be set up just right for him to succeed on offense. Lendeborg is capable of running pick-and-roll offense, operating in short-roll situations, and handling the ball on the break to make plays for others, not just himself. That aspect of his game, on top of how he’s continued to evolve as a shot maker, is what makes him far more than just a quality starter in today’s NBA.

Look at how many different ways Lendeborg is impacting the game on offense per Synergy’s play type data. Being able to find opportunities off the ball, move into quality shots, and create openings for others is rare at this level for ANY rookie of ANY age.

This second graphic is one of my favorite things to research on Synergy. For players who are active in a high volume of possessions, how many quality shots are they actually generating? And are they knocking them down at an efficient rate to match the quality? Lendeborg is a resounding YES to both questions, smashing his competition in the rookie class when it comes to actual conversion rate. Hell, he’s amongst the league’s best players when we’re evaluating his shot-making through this lens.

And when looking at his overall efficiency from every spot and shot type on the court, the full picture as to just how good he’s been through his first nine games becomes clear: Lendeborg is far, far from just an ordinary rookie.

Lendeborg’s ability to finish around the basket and drive through contact at 6’9” and 240 pounds shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. It’s certainly not to me, even as he’s translating his game to the professional level. What IS more of a surprise to me is the volume of shots he’s been taking from three-point range, which have encompassed more than just quick catch-and-shoot looks. Yes, he isn’t making a TON of dribble jumpers and runners, but the creativity we’re seeing from Yaxel and his WILLINGNESS to engage with these types of shots so early in his NBA career is exciting stuff.

His overall progression from three-point range, considering where he was in college at UAB, is astounding. Before he got to Michigan, even though we saw signs of improvement from three, he was effectively much closer to being a non-shooter than he is now.

There’s very little at this point that Lendeborg hasn’t proven capable of on the basketball court. At a bare minimum, he’s shown signs of real growth OR the desire to continue learning and enhancing aspects of his game that are, quite frankly, pretty well-rounded to begin with.

And this all comes back to that lovely conversation I pointed out at the beginning that many had during the last draft cycle. What does the term “ceiling” actually mean?

Last year, I explored the “false ceiling” concept in two written pieces around what Kon Knueppel was proving as a rookie for the Charlotte Hornets, and where Cameron Boozer fell on that spectrum heading into the 2026 NBA Draft. Lendeborg is another clear-cut example of this notion for different reasons.

Both Knueppel and Boozer had questions about their ceilings due to perceived athletic limitations. For both players, those criticisms are warranted, but they possess other equally important physical tools such as frame and raw strength at their respective positions, on top of being two of the most intelligent and skilled offensive prospects we’ve seen enter the draft in recent memory. That type of foundation has carried both through their early NBA careers as their bodies continue to adapt to the levels of athleticism they’re facing on a nightly basis in the league.

Lendeborg is different because, while he’s not a hyper athlete by any means in terms of run/jump ability, he’s certainly at a higher baseline than both Knueppel and Boozer. But that age factor was a massive sticking point in everyone’s scouting report. Just how much better could Yaxel actually get given that he’s already a certain age entering the league? And if he doesn’t have as long of a perceived developmental runway as a 19-year-old rookie, then is he as valuable of a pick, considering he’ll by all accounts be exiting his physical prime by the end of his first NBA contract extension (or what we’ve dubbed the fun max)?

Again, the vast majority of those questions have been answered throughout NBA history with a resounding “no” to taking a player that high. It’s burned teams in the past, and surely will burn more teams in the future given what’s happening in college basketball. More freshmen are electing to stay in school for multiple years, possibly even graduating with a bachelor’s degree and oodles of cash collected from NIL and revenue sharing opportunities. We’re going to see more juniors and seniors in draft classes, apart from just the upper echelon of 19- and 20-year-olds who are deemed worthy enough of entering the league and claiming a starting spot for a team right out of the gate.

But Lendeborg, as has been well documented, was a late bloomer in the world of basketball. He hasn’t been playing the game at a high level for as long as many of his peers have up to this point. Yet he’s grown his game in a myriad of exciting ways since his first days in Division I and continues to get better as time goes on. It’s one thing if Lendeborg’s ceiling was just getting a bit more efficient in certain areas and cutting down on mistakes. Here’s the thing, though: Yaxel is showing new elements to his game every year! I promise he wasn’t taking the same level of shots before he got to Michigan (or even at Michigan?) that he is now with the Warriors.

So what does all of this actually mean for Golden State? Well, it means this team has a completely new, optimistic outlook for this season. If the No. 11 pick hadn’t worked out to this degree, one could argue it would be another lost year in the Curry era given Jimmy Butler’s injury and the Kristaps Porzingis situation. But with Lendeborg playing as well as he has, and what he’s still projected to become over the course of this season and the near future, the Warriors are incentivized to explore opportunities to add to this roster and actually go after one more championship run with Steph and Draymond.

Yes, Lendeborg is already proving to be THAT good! And that’s as good a storyline as you’ll find around the NBA from a narrative perspective because of who it affects.

Silly Nathan Grubel didn’t keep Lendeborg at No. 5 overall on his 2026 NBA Draft board because of so many talented young guards who were all effectively drafted before Yaxel. I made the argument for Lendeborg to be the best overall player as it stood in June, with every bit of an argument to take him as the first player after the “Big Four” of Boozer, AJ Dybantsa, Darryn Peterson, and Caleb Wilson. I didn’t stand on it and let the arguments about age and ceiling get in the way of what could’ve been a home run evaluation on my part. But hey, we all learn lessons in the NBA Draft one way or another.

Warriors fans should be as excited as ever for what this team could achieve both this year and within the next few seasons. As Green said himself, Lendeborg really is the next face of the Warriors franchise.

Rookie Spotlight

Bennett Stirtz and Aday Mara, Oklahoma City Thunder

I had to shout out both OKC Thunder rookies for seamlessly integrating into everything the Thunder want to do with Jalen Williams, Chet Holmgren, Cason Wallace, and now Alex Caruso all out of the lineup.

Ajay Mitchell was due for a larger opportunity to prove he’s a starting guard in the league, but having to lean on several young guards, including Jared McCain and Bennett Stirtz, isn’t usually a recipe for success for a team with title aspirations.

And yet, Stirtz has passed the test with flying colors as a role player off the bench tasked with hitting every three he looks at. Not only has he been efficient from deep, but he’s made shots across the board attacking tilted defenses and, honestly, scoring from all three levels. We haven’t seen primary point guard Stirtz yet, so the passing numbers aren’t all there for him. But let’s not forget how prolific a playmaker he was at times in college for both Drake and Iowa. So long as he keeps shooting the way that he is, I’m sure more of those opportunities will come his way.

As for Aday Mara, I was overly impressed with his play during preseason, so much so that I selected him on my All-Rookie Second Team predictions. Mara is a real problem at 7’3”, able to deter shots in the paint and provide additional rebounding to a team that has struggled to crash the glass on both ends of the floor in prior seasons.

It’s those flashes of finesse, though, that keep me interested in Mara. We haven’t seen as many in the regular season so far as we did in the preseason, but there is far more than meets the eye to Mara’s game, and I’m sure, similar to Stirtz, he’ll get more chances to peel back those layers for OKC Thunder fans.

Mara has been a very serviceable backup, and I want to see him play more minutes alongside Isaiah Hartenstein to retain some of those double-big looks for the Thunder. Both rookies are having great starts, and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that BOTH could end up on All-Rookie teams come season’s end.

Meleek Thomas, Cleveland Cavaliers

One of my preseason burning questions in the Eastern Conference was around Meleek Thomas and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Could Thomas earn enough trust to be counted on as a deeper rotational guard for the Cavs come playoff time? It’s one thing to give a rookie guard minutes in the regular season should there be injuries or disappointments on the depth chart. It’s an entirely different animal to think about giving a first-year player minutes on a contender in the East.

But Thomas looked ready for some kind of role out in Vegas at Summer League, leading the event in scoring and putting on a show while doing it. When Thomas gets cooking from the perimeter, as we’ve seen him do over the last week, he is as good a heat-check player as there is. He’s got a smooth stroke off the bounce and a quick release that makes it difficult to block his shot.

Well, he’s still hitting shots at ridiculous rates, starting out the year 10-for-19 on spot-up threes per Synergy. He hasn’t quite found his range off the bounce, but as a catch-and-shoot weapon who can relocate and get to his spots, he’s given Cleveland a nice punch off the bench in the short term.

We’re quite a ways away from Thomas becoming the best version of himself, aka a more pick-and-roll-centric guard who can command more usage by making plays for others. But similar to Bennett Stirtz above, Thomas has found a role that suits his greatest strength, meaning he’ll keep getting minutes and opportunities so long as he can keep knocking down threes when they come his way.

Bryce Hopkins, Denver Nuggets

I’ve enjoyed watching Bryce Hopkins going back to his days at Providence. A mismatch scoring forward who’s suffered some injuries that set back his timeline to make it to the NBA, Hopkins just knows how to put the ball in the basket. And most importantly, he can do it in more ways than just spotting up and hitting open shots.

Now don’t get me wrong, most of what Hopkins has done early on for the Denver Nuggets has been play finishing. But there have been times, such as against the Toronto Raptors, when he’s gotten some chances to work in a handoff action and take the ball hard to the rack and score. Hopkins has the frame to challenge defenders in the paint and score through them or draw contact. He was much more of a mid-post player in college, and I’m excited to see Denver already run a few plays for him that put him in similar positions.

Hitting 2-of-5 threes to start the year helps Denver’s spacing overall, but 10-for-13 on twos will certainly raise some eyebrows coming from a rookie. He’s a face-up scorer inside the arc through and through, and I’ve been pleased to see him get chances. This Nuggets team doesn’t have a lot of quality young depth, or at least that depth didn’t exist before this class came in. Now with Hopkins and Trevon Brazile (I’ve written about Denver rookies two weeks in a row), there are some interesting pieces in the frontcourt around Nikola Jokic and Aaron Gordon to work with.

I’ll be keeping an eye on Hopkins’ defensive efforts as the season goes on. The more minutes he plays, the more defenses will try to take advantage of how much ground he can or cannot cover in space. If he can defend well enough off the ball and rebound his position, he could play into a role far greater than many could’ve anticipated this season. In the games where he’s gotten real minutes, he’s been stellar. Let’s see if he can keep up that trend.

Sophomore Spotlight

Derik Queen, New Orleans Pelicans

Admittedly, I still don’t fully know what to make of the Derik Queen experience.

He had that great stretch of play last year for the New Orleans Pelicans as a rookie big man, but eventually his play declined to the point where he was coming off the bench alongside Jeremiah Fears.

Now this season, Fears has been a starting point guard while Queen is still coming off the bench because he and Zion Williamson just aren’t a formidable frontcourt defensively when they share the floor together.

Queen did have an excellent outing last week against the Utah Jazz, primarily because he could attack a depleted frontcourt, not to mention he had plenty of time and little pressure to make plays as a hub and attack from the top of the floor. Taking opposing bigs off the bounce is Queen’s specialty. It’s when he has to fit in around others and potentially shoot in spot-up situations that Queen’s overall offensive impact gets messy.

Everything around the impact metrics shows Queen’s been pretty good in his minutes, but if they’re coming at the expense of backup units and not alongside the team’s best player, then how much should we take from that? Meaningful second-year growth, or something else? I genuinely don’t have enough answers on that front quite yet and need to keep watching his development during his sophomore campaign. But I have my eyes on the Pelicans even when many people don’t.

Nolan Traore, Brooklyn Nets

Nolan Traore’s numbers certainly look positive to start the season for the Brooklyn Nets, and by all accounts he’s really improving as a spot-up scorer.

Now, his pick-and-roll efficiency numbers (including passes) haven’t taken the type of leap that you’d want to see from the team’s starting point guard (for now). But he’s hitting open catch-and-shoot threes at a steady clip, which is a positive for the young guard who has had shooting questions throughout his career!

Traore can play good man-to-man defense in the backcourt, force turnovers, and is now hitting shots off the ball. But until he improves as a downhill scorer directly at the rim, he’ll never be able to turn that speed advantage into a true game-breaker as a playmaker for the Nets.

Hopefully he turns a corner in the finishing department and finds a way to change speeds better and mix in some pull-up twos when he has the opportunity. Traore is a really fun young player to watch, and the Nets still need good guard play even with Egor Demin and Mikel Brown Jr. on the roster.

Kobe Sanders, Los Angeles Clippers

Kobe Sanders put on a freaking clinic against the Toronto Raptors last week, showing the whole package when it came to scoring the basketball.

Open threes, isolation scoring opportunities, attacking downhill to throw down a thunderous dunk! Sanders showed a bit of everything against Toronto en route to 26 points, one of the best performances of his young career.

Sanders is a great young player to keep an eye on because he’s quietly the most interesting prospect on this LA Clippers team. I didn’t say he was the best prospect—that’s Keaton Wagler. But hear me out: if Sanders continues blossoming into the version of himself at the pro level that we saw at Nevada, you’re talking about a huge backcourt that is far more difficult to target on the defensive end of the floor.

In college, Sanders shared a heavier pick-and-roll burden at 6’8” and has the type of handle and touch to make defenses pay should he get more of those chances this season for the Clippers. As an off-ball player, he’s improved as a spot-up shooter and has given real effort on the defensive end of the floor.

Wagler stands at 6’6”, with Sanders, as mentioned, at 6’8”. You’re talking about two wing-sized players who can handle the ball, play off one another as shot makers, and offer real upside defensively to at least offer a bit more resistance. Clippers fans should be rooting for Sanders to succeed as much as Wagler for a more interesting future.