told Anthony Slater<\/a>. \u201cBut thinking back I guess my answers weren\u2019t as professional. Just giving honest answers like, \u2018Yeah, I\u2019m BSing in practice. Yeah, I\u2019m not doing my job in games, but I\u2019m performing.\u2019 I guess I didn\u2019t really give out the good vibe.\u201d<\/p>\nWe\u2019re assuming he improved on those answers before this draft, while also improving on his approach to playing basketball. Lendeborg claims he didn\u2019t practice hard enough, sleep well, or watch enough game tape until playing for Wolverines coach Dustin May, now coach of the Dallas Mavericks. That last one was the key to Lendeborg charming Steve Kerr after the Warriors coach quizzed him about his own game tape.<\/p>\n
\u201cI pretty much gave all the right answers,\u201d Lendeborg said, which is good because, \u201cI was BSing\u201d probably wouldn\u2019t have flown with Kerr.<\/p>\n
For his part, the Warriors coach has gushed about Lendeborg\u2019s \u201cnatural feel\u201d for basketball, his pass-first attitude, and his personality, where, \u201cThere\u2019s no filter.\u201d At no point anywhere in the profile does he call Lendeborg a jackass, dingbat, numbskull, knucklehead, doofus, or a ding-dong.<\/p>\n
Lendeborg specifically charmed Kerr and other Warriors officials when they went to dinner at Draymond Green\u2019s restaurant, and watched Game 4 of the NBA Finals, where the New York Knicks came back from 29 points down to shock the San Antonio Spurs. Lendeborg was the \u201clife of the party.\u201d<\/p>\n
What might have also convinced the Warriors decision-makers is seeing the Knicks, a team relying on a group of rangy, defensive-minded wing players around an undersized, scoring point guards, take down the Spurs. Lendeborg looks to be the type of player that has become hugely valuable to the Knicks and other NBA teams, and been noticeably absent on the Dubs roster.<\/p>\n
And now he even goes to bed on time and works hard in practice! I bet he even makes his bed every morning, like James Wiseman.<\/p>\n
Yaxel Lendeborg used to be a jackass. But he\u2019s not anymore. No more glass houses, white Ferraris, living for New Year\u2019s Eve, slacking off in practice, sleeping during film sessions, horsing around in draft interviews, or sloppy steaks at Truffoni\u2019s!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Golden State Warriors seem very excited about rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, the No. 11 pick in this year\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":837570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,33717,82,48732],"class_list":["post-837569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-nba-news-and-rumors","tag-sports","tag-warriors-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=837569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/837569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=837569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=837569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=837569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}