Yaxel Lendeborg Shines in Warriors' Rookie Breakout

But I want to stick to Yaxel because this kid, like, I love him already. I mean, his filter, he has no filter, really. He says what's on his mind. He already called out Luka Doncic for whining and complaining, and that alone to me, that got me. I was like, I'm all in now on Yaxel. And they play tomorrow. And they play tomorrow. And, listen, he had 31-12-6 in the win over Denver on Monday. Thank This kid is not just talking like a superstar already, but he's playing like a ready-made player. And John, we were talking about this at Summer League, right? We knew that this was going to happen. Now, did we know that it was going to be this quick and it was going to be this good this quick? No. But my goodness, what have your thoughts been you. about Yaxel Lundberg, just in that Warriors system? There were a couple of players that we talked about. You can't let this player get to this particular team. And when the Warriors called his name, I went, wow, they let that happen. And when Adama Mara got called for Oklahoma City, I went, oh, they let that happen. Look, man, I think that his game is tailor-made for where he is. Steph Curry is aging. He's basically playing the Jimmy Butler role. He's getting the shots of Jimmy Butler. He's playing the defense that Jimmy Butler would be out there playing until Jimmy Butler gets out there playing healthy. I think that he is single-handedly. Saving Steph Curry's, the end of Steph Curry's career. I agree. Because season started with what was going on with Porzingis. I had no idea the direction of this team other than poor. But Yaxel, after opening night, has been fantastic. Because I think after he had that run-in with Luka, he went, I can do this. Yeah. And I think Draymond got in his back, like, oh, you can do this. And Steve Kerr and Steph Curry, you can do this. And that belief in him has really paid dividends in these really big games against really good opponents. Yeah, you know, I keep looking around these stats and these headlines. Like, first player since this to do this. A lot of that. There's so many of them. Like, you can go down the list of all these rookies. And we knew it was a very good rookie class. Like, we kind of assumed that it was going to be this good. But even me, like, even me, who's very high on a lot of these players, I didn't expect some of these guys to be this good. Like, you even go to Cam Boozer, who, obviously, the Grizzlies are playing very well at this point. They opened the year. They came out of the gates really strong. 15.3 points a game, 10.5 rebounds, like almost five assists a game. He leads rookies in rebounds and assists. I mean, even Cam Boozer, like, John, when we talked about Cam Boozer, we were like, well, he has probably the lowest ceiling. I wouldn't say lowest ceiling, but he has a relatively low ceiling, but such a high floor, so you know what you're going to get. And that's kind of the case so far. That, you nailed it at the end. With him, you knew what you were going to get. It was just a matter of can his physicality overdo the athleticism that he's going to face at this level. And he's shown you. I can do what I can do. I'm not really worried about what the athleticism. I'm going to play my game. He's been able to make NBA threes, which has stretched out the defense, which opens the court up for him. And again, Ty Jerome playing the way that he has played has taken a lot of attention off of him. And so he's really been able to put good numbers up and be effective night after night so far. It's early, but I'm really liking what I'm seeing from him as well. And then we have the debate. Wagner vs. Oka. John. John and I got to see it firsthand. We got to see it up close. First game of the season. Add into it. We got to show Super Bowl. Oh. Uh. It's crazy that that's our Super Bowl. It was a show Super Bowl. It's like the Indy 500. It was at the start of the year.