{"id":358939,"date":"2026-06-13T05:37:25","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/358939\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T05:37:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T05:37:25","slug":"warriors-work-out-michigans-yaxel-lendeborg-potential-pick-at-no-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/358939\/","title":{"rendered":"Warriors work out Michigan\u2019s Yaxel Lendeborg, potential pick at No. 11"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the Golden State Warriors<\/a> want to get back to their winning ways, drafting a player who recently did a lot of that wouldn\u2019t be a bad place to start.<\/p>\n

Michigan star Yaxel Lendeborg, who helped lead the Wolverines to a program-record 37 wins and a national title this past season, took part in a pre-draft workout Thursday afternoon at Chase Center. The forward falls right in Golden State\u2019s projected draft range at No. 11. The 23-year-old averaged 15.1 points, 6.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists in his sixth and final year of college basketball; he played three years of Division I hoops after three spent at the junior college level.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people like winners,\u201d Lendeborg said. \u201cMe being in the position I was this past year just showcased that I\u2019m willing to put aside any stat or anything about myself to win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond his pedigree, Lendeborg fits the mold of a player Golden State could look to target: an NBA-ready talent who would inject a jolt of youth into an aging roster. Head coach Steve Kerr<\/a> could throw Lendeborg into any lineup alongside Stephen Curry<\/a>, Draymond Green<\/a> and company and expect him to bring lots of energy on both ends of the floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think (I\u2019d fit) perfectly,\u201d Lendeborg said. \u201cThey do a lot of off-ball moving sets, a lot of actions to get Steph open. Playing off his gravity would make it a lot easier for me to make reads and for the other guys to get open as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Standing almost 6-foot-9 barefoot with a 7-foot-3 wingspan, Lendeborg projects as a versatile chess piece who can slide up and down the lineup. At Michigan, head coach Dusty May regularly tasked Lendeborg with guarding the opponent\u2019s best player, placing him on everything from shifty point guards to jumbo forwards.<\/p>\n

Drafting a player who will be 24 by the time he plays his first NBA minutes runs counter to the Warriors\u2019 previous strategy with picks near the top of the draft. James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> and Moses Moody<\/a> \u2014 lottery picks in 2020 and 2021 \u2014 were all high-pedigree teenagers drafted because of their anticipated long-term upside.<\/p>\n

But those picks were made with the idea that the Warriors could juggle two separate timelines. They wanted a young core that could develop during the tail end of Curry\u2019s career, which would then be ready to take over when it was time to pass the torch.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plan fell completely flat. And the front office\u2019s recent actions \u2014 trading for an aging Jimmy Butler<\/a>, signing 40-year-old Al Horford<\/a> to a two-year deal and dealing Kuminga for Kristaps Porzingis<\/a> at February\u2019s trade deadline \u2014 suggest they\u2019ve pivoted to maximizing the supporting cast around\u00a0Curry while they still have him.<\/p>\n

The 2026 draft, particularly at the top, is littered with talented freshmen. Lendeborg, the oldest projected lottery pick by a wide margin, isn\u2019t that. He doesn\u2019t even like using the word upside. But if you ask him, Lendeborg believes he has the same amount of it as everybody else.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can play, you can play. A lot of these younger prospects (have) just been in the spotlight longer than I was,\u201d Lendeborg said. \u201cEverybody\u2019s path is different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lendeborg\u2019s path has been that, certainly. He was a late bloomer who grew up in Pennsauken, N.J.,\u00a0barely played organized basketball in high school, then spent three years at a junior college in\u00a0Yuma, Ariz.,\u00a0and two seasons at\u00a0UAB before his single season with Michigan.\u00a0Lendeborg wasn\u2019t supposed to make it this far. In the end, perhaps that\u2019s what gives him an edge over his peers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a very long, long journey for me as far as just being willing and able to play as hard as I do now,\u201d Lendeborg said. \u201cI feel like every game I get, I have to showcase my skill set, show that I do belong and continue to just prove that I\u2019m better than what I was before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s\u00a0workout: Lendeborg was not the only player brought in, joined by guards Drake Allen (Utah State),\u00a0Kylan Boswell (Illinois) and Meechie Johnson (South Carolina), forward Malik Dia (Ole Miss) and center Felix Okpara (Tennessee). The others are seen as late\u00a0second-rounders or undrafted free agents. The Warriors will hold workouts for other prospects next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the Golden State Warriors want to get back to their winning ways, drafting a player who recently…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7000,81651,101,103,102,104,106,105,127,13340,85426],"class_list":["post-358939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-mike-dunleavy","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sports","tag-warriors","tag-yaxel-lendeborg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}