After being selected by the Warriors with the 11th overall pick on Tuesday, former Michigan forward Yaxel Lendeborg admitted that he “used to hate” new teammate Stephen Curry, having rooted for Kyrie Irving and the Cavaliers to beat Golden State in the 2016 NBA Finals when he was 13. Ten years later, he’s thrilled to get the opportunity to team up with the future Hall-of-Famer, writes Anthony Slater of ESPN.
“Now that I’m actually going to be able to be on the same team with him, play and actually learn so much from him, it means a lot,” Lendeborg said of Curry. “He’s a very great guy, genuine person. It’s going to be an honor to be able to watch what he does in person.”
Lendeborg will turn 24 before he makes his NBA regular season debut this fall, but Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said he’s not worried about the fact that the team’s lottery pick is a few years older than most of the players drafted around him, joking, “He’s not 38.” Dunleavy also observed that Lendeborg’s NBA readiness could make the front office’s job easier in free agency this summer and lauded the forward’s all-around skill set.
“He can play everything,” Dunleavy said, per Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area. “Potentially he can guard one to five. Offensively, I think he’s a forward that can play some small-ball center. And just the way he handles the ball, there’s some backcourt ball-handler responsibilities he can take care of. This is the intrigue with this pick for us is the versatility.”
Prior to the Warriors’ pick, ESPN cameras captured Dunleavy and team owner Joe Lacob engaged in an animated discussion in the team’s draft room. According to Slater, Arizona guard Brayden Burries was among the Warriors’ targets, and after Milwaukee nabbed at him at No. 10, one spot ahead of Golden State, the Warriors began fielding calls from teams interested in No. 11 — that happened at the same time ESPN’s broadcast aired a live shot of the team’s draft room.
Dunleavy acknowledged later in the night that his conversation with Lacob was about the trade options on the table and the owner’s anxiousness to finalize the pick, Slater writes.
“Ultimately we were all in agreement to land on taking Yaxel,” Dunleavy said.
We have much more from around the Pacific:
- Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank said the team went through an “exhaustive process” assessing its options at No. 5 before determining that Illinois guard Keaton Wagler was the right pick, per Law Murray of The Athletic. In explaining the choice, Frank cited Wagler’s positional size, his high basketball IQ, his ability to play on and off the ball, and the fact that he can dribble, pass, and shoot at a “very, very high level.” Point guard Darius Garland shared his input on the No. 5 pick ahead of the draft, according to Frank, who said that he thinks Garland “really, really happy” to have Wagler join L.A.’s backcourt.
- Asked about Kawhi Leonard‘s future with the Clippers, Frank replied that the club’s plan “still is to win with Kawhi” and that he thinks the star forward will like the Wagler pick too, as Murray relays. “Kawhi loves size, he loves shooting, he loves skill, he loves IQ, he loves feel,” Frank said. “Those are the types of players that he’s always kind of been attracted to.”
- Because they only controlled the No. 47 pick prior to the draft, the Suns didn’t get the opportunity to bring in Arizona native Koa Peat for a workout, according to John Gambadoro of Arizona Sports 98.7 (Twitter link), since he was projected to be drafted much higher than that. However, the Suns did get to meet with Peat on Sunday once they began to believe they might be able to trade into the first round, Gambadoro notes. Phoenix ultimately traded up to No. 30 to select the forward.
- The Lakers made another addition to their basketball operations department earlier this week, hiring former Pelicans basketball analytics coordinator Dominic Samangy as a basketball analyst, tweets Benjamin Royer of The Orange County Register. Samangy confirmed the move with an Instagram post.
