SAN FRANCISCO – On the day Warriors rookie Yaxel Lendeborg was born, it’s entirely possible that 14-year-old Stephen Curry was in a gym honing his jump shot and 12-year-old Draymond Green’s was giving his mother fits of annoyance.
Yet Lendeborg, who turns 24 on Wednesday, is considered “old,” because he’s an NBA rookie. Green, Curry and the rest of the Warriors are welcoming the grizzled kid.
As they should, because they’re going to need the 6-foot-9, 240-pound forward from the University of Michigan.
Any chance for Golden State to have success early in the 2026-27 NBA season is largely dependent on Lendeborg making an impact alongside Curry and Green, two veterans with a combined eight championship rings and 16 All-Star Game appearance over 32 NBA seasons.
“He’s clearly going to play a ton,” coach Steve Kerr said of Lendeborg on Monday.
Curry, Green and Lendeborg will be the primary forces that determine Golden State’s fortunes as the calendar dives toward 2027. If they stay healthy and play well, the Warriors might be able to hang around the middle of the Western Conference. If not, the season will be endangered before Christmas – long before the anticipated returns of valuable reinforcements Jimmy Butler III and Moses Moody.
“Needless to say, he’s going to be . . . we know what Steph does and myself,” Green said of Lendeborg. “But he’s going to be important.”
Being the third component of a determining trio is a lot to ask of a rookie, no matter his age, but Lendeborg’s history indicates he is built to produce. He played three levels of college basketball, adjusting to different roles, constantly improving and becoming the best player on his team.
With Jimmy Butler III rehabilitating from surgery to repair a torn right ACL, there is an opening for a fearless forward capable of scoring in multiple ways including drawing fouls and getting to the line – creating scoring opportunities for his teammates and grabbing rebounds in traffic. The Warriors hope Butler can return early in 2027, but his absence is Lendeborg’s opportunity.
“Whenever you bring in younger guys, they all just want to get busy and get to it right away, scoring and doing all of these things,” Butler said of Lendeborg. “And he can do that at a high level.”
Lendeborg averaged 11 rebounds per game as a bruising power forward in two seasons at the University of Alabama-Birmingham before transferring to Michigan, where he slid over to the wing and shot 37.2 percent from deep – and led the Wolverines to the national championship.
Kerr is not promising a starting role for the rookie, but no one else on the current roster is equipped with his array of tools. Gui Santos doesn’t have the size/strength combo, and neither Georges Niang nor Malevy Leons can match Lendeborg’s comprehensive skills. None of the three see the game as well.
“He gives us the size and the versatility that we need,” Kerr conceded. “He can guard bigs. He can guard wings. He’s a connector on offense, a really good passer and ball handler. I always try to check boxes with guys, evaluating them, dribble, pass, shoot, process. He checks all those boxes.”
Green on Monday recalled a sequence during a recent scrimmage in which he and Curry teamed with Lendeborg on an in-bounds play that led to a dunk for the rookie. Draymond is not easily impressed, but he was with how easily Lendeborg read the action.
“It looked like we had been playing together for a long time,” Green said. “An out-of-bounds play, somebody threw me the ball. Steph back-picked it. (Lendeborg) didn’t know he should go off. He went off. Boom. Dunk.
“Steph was like, ‘Yo, see that, because that’s going to happen a lot.’”
Lendeborg said he’d never come off a back screen and found so much space.
“They were both like, ‘That’s all year! All year!’ Super loud and aggressive,” he said of Curry and Green. “I was like, ‘Oh, wow, OK.’ If it’s going to be like that, then it’s going to be a lot of fun. So hopefully it is like that.”
Every good starting lineup has at least three reliable scoring/playmaking options. Curry is a given. Green will be asked to do more scoring from deep, and he is capable, as is De’Anthony Melton. Primary centers Kristaps Porziņģis – who is expected back after training camp – and Al Horford can space the floor.
But Golden State’s early fate practically begs for significant contributions from Lendeborg. If he delivers, they could surprise. And he might achieve a particular goal.
“I feel like I could win Rookie of the Year,” Lendeborg said. “But that’s not my main focus.”