Golden State Warriors forward Yaxel Lendeborg drives toward the basket as Memphis Grizzlies forward Cameron Boozer defends during the second quarter Friday at Chase Center.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
Golden State Warriors forward Yaxel Lendeborg drives toward the basket as Memphis Grizzlies forward-center Isaiah Stewart defends during the second quarter Friday.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
Golden State Warriors forward Yaxel Lendeborg drives toward the basket during the second quarter of his NBA home season opener against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
Golden State Warriors forwards Yaxel Lendeborg (1) and Gui Santos (15) react to a call during the second half of Friday’s home opener against the Memphis Grizzlies.
Stephen Lam/S.F. Chronicle
This time Yaxel Lendeborg squared off against Cameron Boozer, not Luka Doncic. That made for a different type of duel, without any referendum on whether an NBA rookie should dare trade trash talk with one of the league’s top players.
Doncic’s name still came up Friday night at Chase Center, and once again Lendeborg showed his penchant for biting honesty.
“I’m always gonna be myself, man,” Lendeborg said after he and the Golden State Warriors collapsed late and fell 111-108 to Memphis. “I don’t care what anybody has to say about it. The guys on the couch talking bad about me, I couldn’t care less.
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“I’m 24 and in the NBA, with the best job in the world. I just moved my mom out to California. I’m living a dream.”
So what feedback did Lendeborg hear after his verbal jousting with Doncic in the season opener 48 hours earlier?
“I’m not supposed to talk to him, something like that,” Lendeborg replied, chuckling. “C’mon now. He’s gonna say what he wants to say and I’m gonna say what I want to say. I’m not afraid to talk to anybody. He’s not Michael Jordan.”
Lendeborg acknowledged he “did take it overboard” during his postgame media session Wednesday night. That’s when Lendeborg told reporters he “lost all respect” for Doncic, given his perpetual complaining to the officials in the Lakers’ season-opening win over the Warriors in Los Angeles.
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Two nights later, in their home opener, Lendeborg and Golden State confronted fresh demons. The Warriors blew a 12-point lead in the final four minutes, absorbing a painful loss to Boozer and the Grizzlies.
Lendeborg filled the stat sheet, scoring 18 points with 13 rebounds and six assists. He earned 12 free-throw attempts, a huge Warriors need with Jimmy Butler sidelined. Lendeborg also committed six turnovers, repeatedly dribbling into traffic and losing the ball.
Boozer, the No. 3 overall pick in the June draft (eight spots ahead of Lendeborg), produced similar numbers — 25 points, 13 rebounds, six assists, six turnovers. Not visible on the stat sheet was the way Boozer drove right at Lendeborg and scored on him down the stretch, as Memphis mounted its stunning comeback.
“I think I definitely threw the game away myself, because of all those turnovers,” Lendeborg said.
Warriors head coach Steve Kerr struggled to peer past those final few minutes, naturally, when the Grizzlies stitched together a 17-0 run to steal the win. But he found a slice of solace in the way his team’s prized rookie became more assertive offensively, after a tentative first quarter.
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“Yaxel is going to get better and better,” Kerr said. “He just has to get used to the NBA. I thought there were several plays where he kind of just launched himself into the defense, either trying to score or get fouled. Those are plays where he’s going to learn to make a jump stop and make the play behind him.
“He’s putting himself in some risky spots that he won’t be doing a few weeks from now. … The game will slow down for him. He’s going to be a great, great player.”
The dust-up with Doncic on Wednesday, while highly entertaining, did not change an inescapable reality for Lendeborg: The Warriors need him to make an immediate impact on the court. They begin this season wildly short-handed, and in danger of sliding into oblivion long before Butler and Moses Moody (potentially) return from their knee injuries in January or February.
Kerr offered a fundamental request before Friday night’s game, when he was asked about the basketball piece of Lendeborg’s eventful debut against the Lakers — and what the Warriors need from him moving forward.
“I need him to run the floor harder,” Kerr said. “He has a tendency to coast a little in transition, so I want to see him run the floor harder. I think that will open up a lot of opportunities for him.”
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Lendeborg ran hard down the court at times against Memphis, but Kerr is not wrong — Lendeborg often drifts at half-speed. He also came out curiously passive at first, perhaps spooked by the presence of 7-foot-3 Memphis center Zach Edey.
Lendeborg did not attempt his first shot until more than three minutes into the second quarter. Later in the quarter, Edey twice blocked Lendeborg’s shot on tentative drives to the basket.
But Lendeborg also showed why he’s quickly becoming a fan favorite, drawing louder applause in pregame introductions than anyone not named Stephen Curry or Draymond Green.
On one play, Lendeborg spun around Jerami Grant to score on a twisting, left-handed layup. On another play, he baited Grant into a foul (Doncic-like) on the perimeter. Then he sealed Jaylen Wells on the low post, corralled a long pass from Green and dunked.
“I didn’t mind that stuff the other day,” Kerr said of Lendeborg’s exchanges with Doncic. “But as Steph said, you’ve got to back it up. That’s the thing. We play the Lakers again next week (on Friday), so OK here you go.
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“So that was an interesting opening night, but for us as a staff it’s really more about the small things that most people aren’t going to be looking at, like help-side defense. He did a good job on Luca one-on-one (Wednesday), but we got torched by Luca as a team.”
Two nights later, the Warriors got torched by Boozer and Ty Jerome. Now comes another test, with the first back-to-back set of the young season. Brandin Podziemski does not expect to play Saturday night in Phoenix, given his sore back, and Stephen Curry, Al Horford and Draymond Green also could sit.
So c’mon down, Yaxel, and take all the shots you want.
“I would definitely have to be way more aggressive,” Lendeborg said of likely facing the Suns without Curry. “I’m looking forward to it, to see how I do and how I step up to the challenge.”