- 2 days ago
Willard and Dibs discuss how Yaxel Lendeborg has looked so far in summer league.
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00:00What would a LeBron arrival mean for Yaxel Lundeborg, who, by the way, is having just a tremendous summer league?
00:08And I don't want this to sound like overexcitement about summer league.
00:13It's summer league.
00:14That is not the NBA.
00:15But at the same time, I don't think you're crazy or getting ahead of yourself to watch him play the
00:22consistency he's shown with different aspects of his game and go, OK, OK.
00:26Like, I think the Warriors, I think they did a good thing.
00:32And I do believe that we're probably headed down a road where we might get to some other teams and
00:40go, why didn't you take Yaxel Lundeborg?
00:44I'm not saying he would have gone number one, two, three, four, even five.
00:48But just looking at the way the players play, I think we're going to look back on this and go,
00:55we probably should have gone a little bit earlier than 11.
00:59That's just my guess right now.
01:00Yeah, and it's a fair guess.
01:02But I do think that it comes down to a couple of things that you say, one of which is
01:07get back to me in three years.
01:09And we'll see exactly who these players are and what they've become.
01:13And also, I think the Warriors were in a spot where they were looking for the highest floor player.
01:18And I don't think that he has the highest ceiling.
01:21Yaxel Lundeborg is he's allowed to get better.
01:24And I think that he will, as any young player in the association does.
01:28But he starts at a spot that is far ahead of a number of these other guys who were taken
01:33ahead of him.
01:34Yeah, and again, yeah, this is not getting ahead of self, but talent has to also meet opportunity.
01:43And I think that that plays into this.
01:45The Warriors, whether they're good this year or not, they're going to be high profile.
01:50He's going to be surrounded by kind of a rookie snuggie, if you will.
01:56You know, a lot of these other teams, they're just going to stick their rookie out there and be like,
02:00okay, go do your thing.
02:01And so I think that that's probably going to help make Yaxel look pretty good because he's not going to
02:09be the focus of the defense and all of those things.
02:12But we'll see. We'll see.
02:13I'm just kind of projecting based on how it looks right now.
02:16Let's go to Matt in San Jose.
02:18What do you think a potential LeBron addition would mean for Yaxel Lundeborg?
02:24Hey, Matt, what's going on, man?
02:25Thanks for calling.
02:27It's always good to talk to you guys.
02:29And Dibs, congratulations, man.
02:30I thought England was going to win myself.
02:32Yeah, thank you.
02:33It was looking dicey for a long time, but they kept knocking on that door.
02:37And eventually, England had to let them in.
02:41Yeah, this Argentina team has, will it use in the cuss words, sustainable.
02:45I didn't think it was sustainable either.
02:46But, man, those guys are great.
02:48Anyway, what does it mean for Yaxel?
02:51It reminds me of the 2022 finals when Iguodala's standing on the sidelines screaming at Andrew Wiggins.
02:57And there's that famous clip.
02:58I don't know what he's fussing at Andrew Wiggins about, but we saw something from Wiggins that we've never seen
03:04from him his entire career.
03:06No other point in his career was he as good as he was during that postseason run.
03:10So, when I think about what it means for Yaxel, it's not Andre Iguodala.
03:14It's LeBron James and Steph Curry and Draymond Green and Al Horford and Jimmy Butler.
03:20Oh, by the way, the head coach of Team USA, Steve Kerr.
03:24And he's already 23 with, like, what, five, six years of college under his belt, which Kerr loves.
03:29So, he's actually going to play him because he's not 19 or 20 years old.
03:32So, I think he'd be set up perfectly to be a championship caliber player, whether he's a star or a
03:37role player.
03:38Yeah, I tell you what, Matt, I mean, the more I even think about this, thanks, bud, good to hear
03:43from you, as always.
03:44The more I think about this, the more I kind of like the idea, too, because another thought that goes
03:50through my head is,
03:51all right, what about the rookie coming into what is clearly, and again, we're all, this is the premise is,
03:58is that LeBron would actually join the Warriors.
04:00Don't know if he will, don't even know if I think he will.
04:02But if it were to go down that way, it's going to be a little bit of a circus.
04:07A little bit of a circus.
04:08A little bit?
04:09A little bit of a circus.
04:10Seriously.
04:10Right?
04:11And I know, you know, despite the fact that there have been many, many, many players
04:17through the Warriors system the last 15 years who swear by Draymond as a teammate,
04:23unfortunately, his biggest act as a teammate was not a good one.
04:28And so there's a thought that, like, he could be, maybe even in ways that are not like what happened
04:34with Jordan Poole,
04:34but could he be really tough on a young teammate?
04:38Could LeBron be pretty tough on a young teammate?
04:40Or could LeBron almost be dismissive of a young teammate?
04:43We know who Steph is.
04:45But this is another piece of what you've talked about, where Yaxel, both in terms of his age
04:51and just the way he looks out there and the way he acts, kind of looks like an adult.
04:55Yes.
04:56And I think he can handle it.
04:57He probably can handle this better than maybe some 19-year-olds could.
05:01And if you think about the other youngsters who have been part of this dynastic run
05:06and James Wiseman, who played about 50 minutes of college hoop and was a complete project
05:11and young, a teenager, Moses Moody was a teenager, Jonathan Kaminga was a teenager,
05:17and Jordan Poole came in with an unbelievable amount of swagger and had to go to the G League
05:22and then started feeling himself and things went the way they went and it wasn't his fault.
05:26But I do think that the maturity level that he has now as a 25 or 26-year-old,
05:32I don't have it in front of me, but it's different.
05:34And Yaxel, to the college point, yes, six years of college, three in JC, and then a couple,
05:41and then he goes to Michigan for a sixth year, and he'll be 24 when the season starts.
05:45So there's a certain amount of the maturity that just comes with living life,
05:49let alone six years of college ball and a high school career that was completely derailed
05:55by academic struggles, and so he's been through a lot more than your average rookie.
06:00I mean, Chance McMillan was on with us earlier this week.
06:03He's on the Warriors Summer League team, and he quickly said, yeah, Yaxel's really good.
06:08He's a big goofball.
06:10And I think we're already getting a little bit of an idea.
06:14This guy's got, I would like to call it a comfortability to his surroundings.
06:20I would imagine that you get drafted by the Warriors, you're a rookie coming into the league,
06:28it might take most human beings a minute before they would start poking at Draymond Green
06:37and Steph Curry on social media.
06:39But it did not take Yaxel a minute.
06:41It took him about three seconds.
06:43And he's got a big personality, a big smile.
06:46He is not scared.
06:48Could that get him in trouble some?
06:50Sure.
06:50It absolutely could.
06:52But it just, he feels like someone who's very comfortable in his own skin,
06:56as you, I think, just been detailing.
06:58He's been through some things in his life, and that probably will bode well
07:04for whatever it is he's about to encounter, whether it includes LeBron or not.
07:08And I do think that coming here takes a lot of the pressure off.
07:12And I was just running down the draft that of the 10 guys who went before him.
07:17And the majority of those players are entering into spots where your team is not expected to do great.
07:22And you can go out there and just play.
07:24And I think about Cade Cunningham when he was the number one overall for Detroit.
07:28They had no expectations.
07:30Just go and play and do what you can and get better and put in the work and all the
07:34rest of it.
07:34And now Cade has some responsibility and some pressure.
07:38But you look at DeBansa in Washington, you haven't won 20 games in Washington in three years.
07:44So, yeah, we expect to be better, but we're not relying on you.
07:48We've got Trey Young, and we have Anthony Davis.
07:50So be a rookie, and hopefully we can make it in the play-in or maybe even do better than
07:54that.
07:54But the majority of these guys don't have expectations, and I don't think Yaxl does either
07:59because of Steph and Draymond and Chris Tapps and Al and maybe LeBron and the rest of it.
08:04You're a little bit of a heater.
08:06I appreciate that, yeah.
08:08We've probably got to reboot the fact that you were talking about Yaxl like three months ago.
08:14Yeah.
08:14Three months ago.
08:15Maybe more.
08:17Probably more.
08:18It's July, June, and then what comes before June is May.
08:23Then April.
08:24No, like before that.
08:25Because, I mean, March obviously was when most of us got to know Yaxl.
08:30I think you might have brought him up in February.
08:33Probably.
08:33You might have.
08:34This year was an odd one for me because I got super into college basketball earlier than normal,
08:40and I was going to make my Vegas trip, and then one of my best friends, Eric Rivera, passed away,
08:45and so we didn't make the trip, but I was all dialed up on the Citadel and High Point and
08:52all these other teams.
08:53Why earlier this year?
08:55I just, the pencil and the paper and the math.
08:58No, man, but always the pencil and the paper.
09:00I just really kind of got into looking at the data and the details because with the portal now in
09:07college basketball,
09:08the mid-manager and Cinderella, they're dying.
09:12They're dying.
09:13Well, sure, at least in terms of the postseason.
09:15Right, because if you have a good team and you have a nice little run one year, well, all your
09:20good players are leaving the next year to get that NIL money and go to a better team.
09:25And so this year I just was kind of doing a deep dive on, like, who are the teams that
09:29might be those few Cinderella's?
09:32And so I watched a lot of college rack this year.
09:35I'm excited about him.
09:37Oh, yeah.
09:37Excited about him.
09:39I'm going to stick to my guns.
09:40I'm not going to tell you he's going to be great.
09:43Same way I'm not going to tell you he's going to be a bust.
09:46I'm not giving anybody any draft grades.
09:50But Summer League has served to up my excitement of Yaxo Lundeborg as a warrior.
09:57And I mean that on multiple fronts, too.
09:59Yeah.
09:59It's not just the basketball.
10:01Like, seems like a pretty engaging dude.
10:04No doubt.
10:05Yeah.
10:05And he's out there and he looks comfortable.
10:08And the other guy who's really kind of caught my eye is Caleb Wilson, who is on the bowls,
10:13the kid out of North Carolina who got hurt toward the tail end of the season last year.
10:17He's out there looking, and he's a lot younger than Yaxo, but he looks like he's ready to go.
10:22He's a grown man.
10:23He's out there, like, making stuff happen in Vegas.
10:26Like, a lot of them look good.
10:27The ones that came early, I think they all look pretty good.
10:32The returns on, you know, Darren Peterson have been very, very good.
10:38Acuff, you know that I was a big Acuff fan.
10:42Early returns, really, really good.
10:44Now, maybe it's, again, it's summer league.
10:47So, I'm not going to dive into stats.
10:50I'm more just thinking about the feel.
10:53And when you watch a basketball player, it's like, do I see something that is interesting
11:00and exciting with a lot of these guys?
11:03I haven't even got a chance to watch much from DeBonsa.
11:08But, you know, like, yeah, a lot of them, I think, have probably done exactly what their
11:15respective fan base was kind of hoping they would do.
11:17Yaxo, definitely on the list.
11:19Definitely.
11:19Yeah, I wonder how many of those guys we just mentioned are getting into shutdown time
11:24because you get the three games in.
11:26Warriors are two and one.
11:27I'm not sure if they have to win again to even make it into the bracket.
11:32But usually three games in, you start to, all right, we've seen you.
11:36You're our top guy, like Will Richard and, you know, even LJ Cryer, who joins us at the
11:41top of the hour.
11:42In 15 minutes.
11:42You may start to shut these guys down and let the back end of the roster just go out there
11:46and play.
11:47I mean, yeah, look, our entire area here is, you know, in a warranted way, I think, a little
11:58triggered about injuries, a little worried about it.
12:02So, that'd be fine.
12:04That'd be fine by me.
12:05At the same time, you know, you play sports and you've got to put your people out there.
12:11You obviously can't play scared.
12:12Right, but it is Summer League and they face New York tomorrow, 4 o'clock on ESPN 2, and
12:19that'll be their final game in the, quote, regular season of Summer League.
12:24So, you start to get to this point, you know, second week of Summer League and you look at
12:28the guys and, okay, we're going to go ahead and shut you down and maybe there's other guys
12:31you want to get a further look at and you let them play.
12:35And it's probably a good question for LJ Cryer, like, what are the plans for you for tomorrow's
12:40game and going forward?
12:41Because I think he's a guy that is going to make the regular squad.
12:46I was going to say, it feels like, and maybe this is a better question for the next time
12:50we either talk to Mike Dunleavy or somebody that's kind of front office related.
12:56It feels like he's in their plans and he's been putting up, again, for whatever it's worth,
13:02he's been putting up pretty good numbers at Summer League too.
13:05And I think even when he played last year for the Warriors with all of their injuries,
13:12he looked like he belonged.
13:15And, you know, with Pat Spencer no longer on the roster, yeah, feels like there's probably
13:21a spot for him, like an actual regular roster spot.
13:24At the very least, a two-way.
13:26And I'm looking at the box score from yesterday and Yaxle played 29 minutes and Will Richard
13:3126, Cryer 25.
13:34And so...
13:34How'd they do?
13:35What were the numbers?
13:37Yaxle was, he had 15 points.
13:39He was a minus 28.
13:41So, I wonder about this box plus minus stat.
13:44I need to dive deeper into how he is the all-time leader coming off a game where he was
13:51a minus
13:5128.
13:52Yeah, that seems odd.
13:53They lost by 21.
13:54Maybe that stat didn't get updated after yesterday morning.
13:57I don't know.
13:58Perhaps.
13:59Cryer was 3 of 11, 1 of 7 from 3, which is unlike him.
14:03All right, we're going to have to talk to him.
14:04Will Richard had, you know, 11 points and 5 fouls.
14:09But, you know, that second half, they just, that thing got away from him.
14:13Yep, yep, yep.
14:14So, what was Yaxle from the field?
14:17What was his percentage?
14:176 of 12.
14:18Okay.
14:190 of 2 from 3.
14:20Fine.
14:21And 9 rebounds.
14:23Have you been a little surprised at how comfortable his 3-pointer looks at the NBA level?
14:28Yes, a little bit, because watching him shoot the college 3, he was able to, you know,
14:34shoot at a pretty good percentage.
14:35But, that Michigan team was so stacked that he had a little bit more room than he probably
14:40will, although with the Warriors, if you've got staff.
14:43NBA game is more wide open, though, too.
14:45It is.
14:46I mean, I think back to, remember when Ben Howland was coaching UCLA?
14:50Oh, my God.
14:51Well, he was famous for, he had a very kind of a grinder defensive style.
14:56Yep.
14:56And so, he was coaching some really great players, and I think you could tell that they
15:03were good, but a lot of them got to the NBA, and it was like, whoa, holy hell.
15:08I mean, it was Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, guys like that would go through, and their numbers
15:13would be nice, and then they'd get to the NBA, and all of a sudden, it would just blossom,
15:18because there was space and movement and athleticism that wasn't really fostered in Ben
15:24Howland's system.
15:25So, who knows?
15:26You know, there could be a little bit of that with some of these guys, including Yaxal as
15:30well.
15:30Yeah, and the three is, you know, a foot or a foot and a half further out than the college
15:35three, so not that that's a humongous difference.
15:37If you can shoot it, you can shoot it, but I haven't been too stunned at how he's looked
15:43comfort-wise, but I do think that when you start putting him out there with Steph Curry,
15:48for example, and, you know, Draymond Green's not a big-time space player as far as creating
15:53that for you offensively, but just being out there with Steph Curry, you could picture
15:57Yaxal in that corner three and really starting to thrive.
16:00That Mike Dunleavy conversation that Guru and Evan were kind of referencing, I know most of
16:06that was focused on him sort of saying, like, we're just about done with this roster, and
16:11then he had a whole bleep-eating grin on or something while he was doing it.
16:15He did talk about Yaxal as well.
16:17This is via ESPN.
16:20Just a seamless fit into how you can play both offensively and defensively.
16:23He's playing with our summer league team right now, but as we transition with the veteran
16:28team, we think he'll be able to fit right in and contribute, so having a guy with his
16:33stature, experience level, size, all that stuff is going to go well for us.
16:38A couple of the other things Dunleavy had to say, this is what he said about filling out
16:42a roster around Steph.
16:43Yeah, well, I mean, credit to Steph, he's extended this thing out pretty far, so we get
16:48to keep building a team around him, and it's a fun, it's a fun thing to do, just surrounding
16:53him with the right type of players, thinking through whether we're drafting guys, signing
16:57guys, trading for them, so, you know, I'd say for the most part, it's easy as long as
17:01he keeps playing well.
17:01I mean, these are kind of fascinating comments, we should probably break them down for a second.
17:07This is the one where the guys were talking about the grin, obviously, you're listening
17:11to us, you can't see the grin, although, I will tell you, like, when you work in the
17:17voiceover world, you are told that you can hear a grin.
17:21Like, sometimes if they want a reed to sound a little lighter, they'll be like, smile while
17:26you say this one.
17:27Interesting.
17:27And you can hear it, like, for real, you can.
17:30I don't know, can you hear a grin here?
17:31NBA fans and Warriors fans want to know, is there any lingering pieces of business that's
17:38floating out there that you feel like you have to take care of before you can put the
17:41summer to bed?
17:42Yeah, I think we're getting close to finalizing the roster here, so we're looking forward to
17:45that finish point.
17:48Maybe drink on green, maybe, and we'll see beyond that.
17:51We'll see, yeah, we'll see.
17:52We shall see.
17:53We shall see.
17:54We shall see.
17:55And there's a little chuckle in there when he tried to pause, which he finished his answer
17:59rather quickly.
18:00Right.
18:00Because he was like, you know.
18:02The teeth were out.
18:03Again, the bleep-eating grin is there, but in that previous comment where he's talking
18:08about how easy it is to build a roster around Steph when he's still playing this well, does
18:14it hit you in any way?
18:16Because it certainly hit me.
18:17It's like, I don't think us out here in We Love Warriors world, I don't think we feel
18:25like the roster's been built at all.
18:28Like, it just brought everybody back.
18:30It's been rebuilt, right?
18:32Yeah.
18:32Like, last year was a little bit of a disaster.
18:35Instead of like, oh, you know what?
18:37Let's take this opportunity to expand the bathroom, and maybe we'll throw on an extra room over
18:42here.
18:42No, you just kind of rebuilt what you already had.
18:44I mean, the more I think about this, yeah, either, and I don't even know if it's LeBron,
18:49but either the Warriors do have a little bit of something up their sleeve, or Don Levy
18:57is one hell of a poker player.
19:02Because he sounds, to me, and maybe it's like Summer League, and we're in Vegas, and it's
19:08only July, but he sounds very at ease with what's going on.
19:14Yeah.
19:15And I don't think that's how a Warrior fan feels right now at all.
19:17No, the Warrior fan is thinking either, yeah, you better get LeBron, or we're going to run
19:23it back, and we're going to stink again, or God, I don't want LeBron, and while you wait,
19:28you're missing out on all these free agents.
19:30And I saw somebody put that on Twitter today, and I was thinking, free agents?
19:34It's like, I saw yesterday that Kelly Oubre signed with somebody.
19:38Did you miss out on Kelly Oubre?
19:41Are we bringing that back?
19:43So I don't know what you really miss out on, you know?
19:46That's a very fair point.
19:47I don't know.
19:50Look, I get it.
19:52I know that there's some discomfort, but that sort of angle of the conversation, oh, you've
19:59sat here waiting for LeBron and let all these other things go by.
20:02What?
20:03What?
20:03What did they let go by?
20:05I don't know that there was anything that either, A, they wanted, or, B, that they had
20:09the power to get.
20:11You know, they were talking about that earlier on the show, and Google was like Jalen Brown.
20:14I don't think they had the ammo to get Jalen Brown.
20:18Whether they even had the desire to get Jalen Brown, I don't know.
20:21But even if they did, they don't have a healthy player to trade for Jalen Brown.
20:27There's that, yep.
20:28So I don't think the Celtics would have been interested in their phone call.
20:32Yeah, I don't think the Warriors, I don't know what they went after, if they've gone after
20:37anything.
20:37It doesn't feel to me like they've lost out, quote, lost out on anything.
20:41I agree with that.
20:41And also, if you look at Washington and this whole Anthony Davis question, if Washington
20:47is trying to be better, and Stiney had a great point yesterday about what they've been
20:51through, and now they're probably ready to start winning.
20:55Not the whole thing, but you're going to win more.
20:57You're no longer tanking.
20:58Do you want to trade a Hall of Fame caliber player in Anthony Davis for a guy who's going
21:03to be hurt until February?
21:05Absolutely not.
21:07We're going to put LJ Cryer on the big finish.
21:09I can't wait.
21:10If he says yes.
21:12He has to approve it.
21:14I think he will.
21:15I think he will, too.
21:17They almost always do.
21:18They always have.
21:20Like, in my entire career doing this, I've never had someone be like, no.
21:26I've had some people ask another, like, sort of respond to a question with a question.
21:31Hey, do the big finish?
21:34What's the big finish?
21:35Right.
21:36What are you going to be asking me?
21:37And then I'm just like, this is stuff.
21:39And I'm like, yeah, it's fine.
21:40I think today's big finish, and I appreciate you empowering me to craft these.
21:46I think it's a good one today.
21:47I appreciate you doing it.
21:48Yeah.
21:48It's a very good one.
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