LOS ANGELES — Matched up with Luka Doncic, Yaxel Lendeborg, the Warriors’ bold and brash rookie, came away with at least one lesson from his NBA debut.
“Being in there firsthand, just watching all the whining and complaining, I lost all respect, man,” Lendeborg said after Golden State’s 127-105 season-opening loss to the Lakers. “That was awful.”
The most entertaining part of a blowout loss for the Warriors was undoubtedly Lendeborg’s ongoing back-and-forth with the Lakers’ equally loud-mouthed superstar.
Lendeborg finished with 12 points, four personal fouls and one technical in 29 minutes.
He often drew the defensive matchup with Doncic, who went off for a game-high 28 with nine free throws.
But Lendeborg’s biggest takeaway was all Doncic’s extracurriculars that came after the whistle.
“Like, me getting frustrated, it’s not about the foul getting called. It’s about him complaining the entire game,” Lendeborg said. “Then you get the foul called — congratulations, bro — and you talk to me like you did something great? That’s just weak. It kind of threw me off for a while. Because like I said, I had so much respect for him. Gone, man.”
Though Doncic only made it to the line nine times, Lendeborg said it felt like 30.
Doncic mostly only ran his mouth on the court, merely saying afterward that the No. 11 overall pick was “talking like crazy.” Lendeborg, on the other hand, was happy to get into the nitty gritty.
“I said a couple cuss words,” Lendeborg said. “That’s why I got the technical. But I was letting him know, because he was laughing and talking all this because of one foul call.”
Lendeborg bit on one of Doncic’s pump fakes midway through the first half, and the two were off and running — their mouths, anyway. Doncic pointed and laughed. Lendeborg responded.
At one point, Lendeborg started putting both his hands behind his back when guarding Doncic.
“I tried my best,” he said. “I still got called.”
The back-and-forth continued for the remainder of the first half, hitting an inflection point after Lendeborg successfully defended Doncic on a step-back 3. He followed him back down the court, yapping all the way, until he was T’d up for the first time in his career.
Doncic returned the favor after banking in a half-court shot at the buzzer going into halftime.
Coach Steve Kerr said it was “kind of ridiculous” that Lendeborg was the only one to draw a technical in the exchange. But he didn’t have a problem with his rookie’s confidence.
“They were jawing at each other. I think it was the words Yaxel chose that got him the T,” Kerr said, acknowledging that Doncic “kind of lured him in.”
Lendeborg looked at it differently, despite Doncic’s well-known proclivity for elevating his play when an opponent pokes the bear. The rest of the league will learn he feeds off it, too.
“I feel like it works for me, for sure. On the defensive end I feel like it worked,” Lendeborg said. “I know he has a reputation for that. That’s probably why the half-court shot went in. But I didn’t really see nothing else. I definitely thought that he was gonna do more than that.”
If we learned anything from Lendeborg’s NBA debut, he may be the league’s most captivating newcomer, possibly even a spiritual successor to Draymond Green.
Lendeborg, however, walked away wide-eyed for another reason.
“I got to see what the NBA’s like, man. A lot of flopping, a lot of foul baiting, a lot of praying to the ref,” Lendeborg said. “Interesting first game, for sure.”
