NBA Draft Week: Rooting for Yaxel Lendeborg But OKC Has My Attention
[commentary]
If you've been following our recent NBA Draft coverage on Let's Go Warriors, you've probably noticed a recurring theme: I keep coming back to Yaxel Lendeborg.
The closer we get to Draft Night, the stronger that feeling becomes. A lot has happened since I first wrote about Lendeborg following his pre-Draft workout and press conference with the Warriors.
We've now gone through scouting reports on Brayden Burries, Labaron Philon, Hannes Steinbach, Chris Cenac, Morez Johnson and others. We've dug into mock drafts. We've followed reporting from Brett Siegel, Jake Fischer, Marc Stein, Michael Scotto and plenty more.
And yet, after all of that, my conclusion remains the same: If Yaxel is available at No. 11, I would pick him.
What changed since the last Yaxel article? A lot. The Warriors have continued bringing prospects through Chase Center. We’ve now heard directly from several of them. We’ve learned more about how teams ahead of Golden State may be thinking.
And perhaps most importantly, we’ve begun hearing more about potential Draft-night movement. One report that caught my attention came from Siegel of ClutchPoints, who reported that Golden State explored moving around the board and inquired about Charlotte's picks.
At first glance, that’s not surprising. Mike Dunleavy, Jr. should be exploring every possible option, but the report reinforced something I’ve been talking about for weeks: I don’t want the Warriors to trade the No. 11 pick — at least not unless the board breaks in a very specific way.
One of the themes from our Draft Primer livestreams has been that this Draft is unusually deep. The top tier gets all the headlines: AJ Dybantsa, Darren Peterson, Cameron Boozer, Caleb Wilson (not necessarily in that order, as we’ve seen speculated on our Discord server in the free “Draft-SummerLeague” text channel).
The more I look at this class, the more I think the Warriors are sitting in a sweet spot. The difference between the player available at No. 11 and the player available in the late teens might not be enormous.
The difference between having No. 11 and having nothing? That's huge. Golden State is old and this roster needs youth — impact youth. The kind of player who can help now while also bridging the gap into the next era.
That's why I've repeatedly argued that if anything, the Warriors should be trying to add another first-round pick, not subtract one.
The easiest thing to talk about is talent. Yaxel has talent. He’s 6’9” with a 7’3” wingspan. He’s built like a linebacker. He can rebound, pass, handle the ball, defend multiple positions. He runs the floor and has enough shooting upside to project into modern NBA lineups.
But talent alone isn't why I'm so high on him. The reason I keep coming back to Yaxel is the intangible side. One story in particular stands out.
When Michigan was struggling to stop Maryland guard David Coit, Yaxel reportedly decided he wanted the assignment himself. Not because a coach told him to, not because it was convenient, because he wanted the challenge.
A 6-foot-9 forward deciding to pick up a hot-shooting 5-foot-11 guard and take responsibility for changing the game? That’s the type of thing that reminds me of Draymond Green.
It’s akin to the Summer of 2012 when I attended Summer League, back when our Dubs were relegated to Cox Pavilion. The advantage with the smaller venue across the way from Thomas & Mack Center — before all the championships and popularity of the brand which has them playing on the main stage more often these days – you could hear everything. All the coaches’ barks of instructions. All the players yelling, “Switch!” on defense, and more.
You could hear Draymond go, “Uh-uh! Uh-uh!” anytime a big tried to post him up and dislodge him.
It’s the spirit, the leadership, the competitiveness, the accountability.
Those qualities are incredibly difficult to find and they're even harder to identify before Draft Night.
With Yaxel, I know they exist.
That doesn't mean I dislike the other names. Quite the opposite.
To me, Burries athleticism and footwork stand out. If Yaxel is gone and Burries somehow falls? I’d be okay with that.
Labaron Philon fascinates me. Watching him, I see flashes of Tyrese Maxey, with the burst, the array of crossovers, the creativity and ability to get paint touches.
The challenge with Philon is the fit. How does that archetype fit into one Wardell Stephen Curry II’s solar system? That's a much tougher question.
And stop it (in the YouTube comments) with the, “He’ll take over when Steph is retired.” We are not picking teams for next game at the rec center. We are integrating a young talent into the long-established culture of Golden State.
As long as Curry plays more than half the season in totality, the ecosystem will be predicated on his gravity, ball movement and off-ball cuts. That’s not Philon’s game. Now, if you were to be gung-ho about trading Steph and building around Philon, I would have more respect for picking Philon at 11, but as long as Steph is the face of the franchise, I don’t know that the 11th pick is worth spending on a Maxey archetype.
As for Hannes Steinbach, I simply don’t think his game will translate to the super-high pace of October-through-December NBA regular season basketball. Check out my scouting report on him, plus his podium interview. I do think he has a higher ceiling than Quinten Post, which should not come as a surprise, as Post was a second-rounder.
And so I land on Cameron Carr as the fall-back, although it sure would be nice to drop down a few spots and pickup additional future Draft capital in the process, which we covered as a report on the Discord server.
The newest development is OKC having an interest in moving up in the Draft, whereby Dallas and Atlanta are the likely targets, with an outside shot of the LA Clippers, per reports, again covered and now searchable on our Discord “knowledge base”.
Then today, you had the Mavs hiring away Dusty May from Michigan — don’t forget to catch our livestream tonight with Wolverines beatwriter Jake Singer of maizenbrew.com:
Oklahoma City has too many assets. That's a weird thing to say about a championship contender, but it's true. They have draft picks, young players, future draft picks, and more flexibility than almost any organization in basketball. And they just cleared out a roster spot by trading Aaron Wiggins to ATL for two future second-round picks.
And, no, the Warriors cap sheet could not allow a similar transaction, as we are too close to the second apron to absorb a contract that OKC needs to unload, and we have a huge free agent in Kristaps Porzingis waiting in the wings, not to mention the Green opt-in coming up June 29th.
So, reports continue to suggest Dallas could be open to moving down from No. 9. If that's true, OKC becomes extremely dangerous because they have the ammunition to move.
And if they move, one of the players who makes a lot of sense for them is... Yaxel Lendeborg. Of course, Aday Mara also makes sense, but certainly the Mavs have some overlaps at the power forward and center spots, so we’ll see.
The Thunder are one of the teams that worries me most heading into Draft Night, not to mention the Mavs, now that May is likely to help them draft one of Lendeborg or Mara — Johnson, Jr. might be a high price to pick at 11.
Why The Discord Matters More During Draft Week
This is probably the busiest week of the year for our Discord. You’ve got both rounds of the Draft, the opt-in dates, free agency, the California Classic and Vegas Summer League. Everything starts happening at once.
One of the reasons I've spent so much time building the Discord is because I wanted something different from social media.
Twitter is great for breaking news. It's terrible as a library. A report gets posted, people argue, then it disappears.
The Discord is organized, searchable, and categorized. If someone asks where a rumor came from, we can actually find it. If someone asks what was reported two weeks ago, we can actually find it.
That becomes especially valuable this time of year.
The next few days are going to be busy. We already had Eric Guilleminault from NBADraft.net joining us again and Jake Singer of Maize & Brew joining us to discuss Michigan prospects including Yaxel, Morez and Mara, plus insights on Coach May.
We'll continue breaking down the latest rumors, and then we'll have our 7th Annual NBA Draft Watch Party. Maybe the Warriors stay at No. 11, maybe they trade down, maybe they acquire another first-round pick.
Or, maybe OKC ruins all my plans. We'll find out soon enough, but if you're asking me today, with everything we've learned over the past few weeks, my board remains pretty simple:
Yaxel Lendeborg
Brayden Burries
Cameron Carr (via trade down)
Trade down and just pick BPA (“best player available” — we will get someone solid in this deep Draft)
Hope you caught my Yaxel video as to the deeper reason for picking him 😉 (timestamped, if you’re lazy or pressed for time).
Man, Draft night is gonna be epic and Wednesday night we can start imagining the fit of our Draft pick!
🫶💙💛