Yaxel Lendeborg finished Wednesday’s win in Minnesota with 26 points, nine rebounds, one assist and seven turnovers. Six of the seven came in the second half, as the Warriors’ lead shrank, and afterward Steve Kerr said he was “almost glad” it happened. That reaction is easy to dismiss as a coach going easy on a rookie. Here it holds up, though not for the usual reasons.
The Turnovers Came From Hesitation
The best evidence is Lendeborg’s own breakdown of the night. He told reporters he “was playing a little timid, and I wasn’t decisive in any of my moves”, and he put five of the seven turnovers down to that. He called the other two careless. Hesitation is the easiest kind of turnover to fix. It doesn’t point to a flaw in his handle or his vision. It describes a rookie still feeling out how hard he can attack NBA defenders.
His first four games back that up. Before Minnesota he was averaging 21.8 points, 9.3 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.0 steals, and he had just posted 31 points, 12 rebounds and six assists in a 134-114 blowout road win over the Denver Nuggets. A player who creates that much doesn’t suddenly forget how to pass. One assist against seven giveaways looks like one bad game.
The second-half collapse also wasn’t his alone. The Warriors turned the ball over 11 times in the second half, and Kerr blamed the whole group: “We smelled blood in the water, and we thought that we needed to make great plays and spectacular plays” rather than solid ones. Lendeborg was part of a team-wide lapse in discipline, and the head coach said so.
The Real Concern Is How Much He’s Carrying
The worried view starts with Kerr’s own words. He said Golden State already has “enough guys already on this team who are going to turn it over. So he needs to be solid.” In other words, the coach doesn’t see Lendeborg’s job as creating chaos. He sees it as cutting chaos down.
The workload makes that harder. Through four games he averaged 33.3 minutes and 15 field-goal attempts per game, and in Minnesota he played 35 minutes, more than any other Warrior. That load exists partly because, with injuries to Jimmy Butler III and Moses Moody, Golden State needs players to step up.
A rookie handling that much of the offense will turn it over more, and Minnesota showed that a shaky ballhandler can nearly cost the team a game. The Warriors led by as many as 24 points, but the Timberwolves cut it to four with under a minute left.
Turnovers also aren’t his only rookie gap. NBC Sports Bay Area’s Dalton Johnson reported that Lendeborg acknowledged weak off-ball defense, the same problem Steve Kerr had faulted him for two days earlier.
All of that is real. None of it shows the turnovers are a pattern. The case against rests on one game, and on the rookie’s own account, five of those seven turnovers came from hesitation, not from anything structural.
Kerr Has It Right
The Warriors should treat Wednesday as Kerr did. Lendeborg is 24, and he has been the team’s second-best player behind Stephen Curry through five games. One sloppy half in a win doesn’t cancel that.
He also responded the right way. He told ESPN’s Anthony Slater, “I played hella soft today.” He said Draymond Green told him to drive through opponents’ chests later in the game, and he did it when Kerr called his number again. Kerr’s point was that the lesson sticks better when it hurts, and Lendeborg’s reaction suggests it did.
What happens next is simple. When Butler and Moody return, Lendeborg’s role will shrink and the reason to force plays will mostly go away. Until then, Golden State will keep putting the ball in his hands, and it should. Five games in, he has earned that with his production, and one rough night doesn’t change it.
Sources: Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area, Anthony Slater of ESPN. Box score via ESPN.
Leave a Reply