LAS VEGAS \u2014 Minutes after Morez Johnson Jr. made his NBA Summer League debut Thursday, a current teammate and a former teammate took separate turns crashing his postgame news conference.<\/p>\n
First, Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg butted in to congratulate Johnson on his near double-double.<\/p>\n
Then Yaxel Lendeborg \u2014 the Golden State Warriors rookie who won a national championship alongside Johnson<\/a> at Michigan in the spring \u2014 interrupted to ask Johnson about getting to face each other.<\/p>\n \u201cI tried to big boy him,\u201d Lendeborg said after the Warriors\u2019 101-90 win over the Mavericks. \u201cNever worked.\u201d<\/p>\n If Thursday\u2019s game was any indication of how his first NBA season will go, Johnson is going to be a formidable presence inside. The 20-year-old, who grew up near Chicago, scored 27 points, collected eight rebounds and notched three steals and two blocks. His two-way impact allowed the Mavericks to at least make the game competitive \u2014 cutting Golden State\u2019s lead down to 3 with four minutes remaining \u2014 after they fell behind by 24 points.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s relentless,\u201d Lendeborg said about Johnson. \u201cIt seems like he never gets tired. He\u2019s just a strong human being. It\u2019s just ridiculous. He\u2019s going to be a monster in a few years. Maybe this year, too.\u201d<\/p>\n Lendeborg has a chance to make an immediate impact in the NBA, too. The 6-foot-9, 241-pound Lendeborg is uncommonly skilled for someone who\u2019s built like an NFL tight end. Lendeborg had 21 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.<\/p>\n Multiple times in Thursday\u2019s game, Lendeborg drove the ball directly at Johnson in the paint.<\/p>\n \u201cI was expecting him to come at me, of course,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe compete all the time. Compete in practice. Compete off the court. We have little challenges and stuff like that. I was expecting that.\u201d<\/p>\n Johnson and Lendeborg combined for 79 games started for Michigan last season. The Wolverines were one of the most dominant college basketball teams in recent memory, posting a 37-3 record and winning their six NCAA Tournament games by an average of 19 points.<\/p>\n Dusty May<\/a>, who was Michigan\u2019s coach, chose to leave the school and join the Mavericks. On the same day Dallas announced him as its head coach, the Mavericks chose Johnson with the No. 9 pick<\/a>, the Warriors selected Lendeborg at No. 11<\/a> and the Oklahoma City Thunder snapped up Aday Mara<\/a> \u2014 Michigan\u2019s 7-foot-3 center \u2014 at No. 12.<\/p>\n Lendeborg predicted Thursday that May won\u2019t have any issues acclimating to the NBA.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a player\u2019s coach,\u201d Lendeborg said. \u201cHe\u2019s a guy you can look up to not just as a coach but as a father figure. He cares about you more as a person than just basketball. That definitely goes a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n While May will have to compete against Lendeborg and Mara several times every season in the Western Conference, he\u2019ll at least be able to lean on Johnson, whose nonstop motor is already earning him praise among teammates.<\/p>\n \u201cI love him already,\u201d Mavericks point guard Ryan Nembhard said. \u201cHe plays so hard on both ends. He\u2019s going to impact a game some way, somehow. Whether it\u2019s shots falling or not. Rebounds. Blocked shots. Switches 1 through 5. Loved watching him at Michigan. It\u2019s been great getting to play with him today. Looking forward to continuing to see what he can do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Minutes after Morez Johnson Jr. made his NBA Summer League debut Thursday, a current teammate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[760,355,99],"class_list":["post-754542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}