Happy 24th Birthday To Warriors Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg

I’ve been in the Warriors birthday letter business for a minute now. I wrote Brandin Podziemski one when he turned 22, then another when he turned 23 and was ripping down 30 boards in two games like the ball owed him money. I wrote Jonathan Kuminga a whole armchair therapy session for his 23rd. So when I sat down to wish the newest homegrown hope a happy birthday, I did the math and almost spilled my coffee on the keyboard. Yaxel Lendeborg turns 24 today, and the rookie is officially older than every player I’ve ever written one of these things for.

It gets funnier. Kuminga turns 24 on October 6th which makes Yax six days older than the guy Golden State took seventh overall in 2021, back when JK was an 18-year-old with 13 inefficient G League Ignite games to his name. Podz was 20 when the Warriors called his name at No. 19 in 2023. Yaxel went No. 11 this June as the oldest first-rounder in the whole draft, at least three years older than all ten guys picked ahead of him.

The internet loves treating a 23-year-old draft pick like a carton of milk you found behind the leftovers. Check the date, give it a sniff, toss it. I absolutely get the instinct; by the time Steph Curry was 24 he was already in season four, dropping 54 on the Knicks in Madison Garden. I also think it misses the entire point of this kid, because Yaxel spent the years most lottery picks spend in AAU gyms doing something way less glamorous.

He played 11 varsity games in high school. Eleven! He ended up becoming a national champion at Michigan while taking Big Ten Player of the Year averaging 15.1 points and 6.8 rebounds and hitting 37.2% from deep.

So what did Mike Dunleavy buy with the 11th pick? A 6-foot-9 forward who connects things, and Vegas showed it. Yax walked out with the Summer League MVP trophy, after averaging 14.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists, then put up 21 and 10 to beat Memphis in the title game. And then he graded himself a C-plus or B-minus, saying he could have been more aggressive and needs to get in better shape. The humility!

It’s also why the fit makes sense. Steve Kerr just rolled out a 5-Out offense at camp, and a 6-9 forward who spaces the floor and makes the extra pass is the type of piece that system eats with.

All of which brings me back to the letter I wrote Kuminga, because the whole thing was built on one question: who decides when it’s taking too long? This franchise has spent a decade struggling to answer it. Wiseman got two and a half seasons. Poole won a ring and got shipped out a year later. JK got five years of flashes and stretches of searching. The Warriors kept drafting teenagers and then asking them to grow up on a contender’s schedule.

With Yax, they flipped it. Steph is 38. Draymond is 36 and starting his 15th season. So the front office went out and drafted a grown man who already did his growing up in Yuma and Birmingham and Ann Arbor. The patience problem doesn’t go away this time, rather it just lands on him faster, because a 24-year-old rookie doesn’t get the “he’s still a baby” grace period JK got for four years.

Happy birthday, Yax. Next Tuesday, Kuminga blows out the same number of candles you did today. Sunday night in Honolulu, you get your first preseason minutes against the Clippers, and Dub Nation finds out if Golden State finally drafted someone who is gonna be here for the long haul.