The Golden State Warriors opened their preseason with a 104-101 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday in Hawaii, and the main takeaway was rookie forward Yaxel Lendeborg. He made his NBA debut, played 19 minutes and drew a very specific message from coach Steve Kerr: be more aggressive.
The Lendeborg line
Lendeborg, the 11th pick in the 2026 draft, grabbed nine rebounds in 19 minutes, including seven in the first half. He shot 1-for-6 from the field and finished with a few assists and a block. Box score outlets differ slightly on his final point total, so I am leaving that number out.
The rebounding is the good news. He plays bigger than his shooting night suggests, and his defensive instincts showed up in transition. The bad news is that he looked hesitant when the scoring chances came.
Kerr wants more
Kerr pointed to one second-half possession as proof. Lendeborg had a clear path to the rim and passed instead, and the Clippers got a three at the other end. Kerr said it needed to be a layup.
His full message was direct: “Yaxel’s good; we really need him to be more aggressive.” He also praised two pick-and-roll passes to Charles Bassey and said Lendeborg is capable of being the lead offensive threat when Stephen Curry is off the floor. Then came the reality check, with Kerr noting Lendeborg is just five days into his NBA career.
Curry backed that message. He said young players need to walk a fine line between aggressiveness and accepting that mistakes will happen.
What it means for Golden State
Curry played only 13 minutes and scored 10 points on 3-of-4 shooting with two threes made. That is exactly the workload you expect in the first game of October, so no one should read anything into the loss itself.
The Warriors’ bench unit, led by Bassey with 12 points, Brandon Williams with 11 and Graham Ike with 11, pushed the game late. Careless first-half turnovers were what Kerr kept coming back to. That is correctable, and Golden State has six preseason games to clean it up.
My read is that Kerr is right to push him publicly now. A rookie who defers to veterans will not help a team trying to stay relevant in the West. If Lendeborg shoots those open looks with confidence, the rebounding and passing already give Golden State a useful rotation piece.
The thing to track is whether the passivity continues in the next two games. Nobody has reported any injury concern with him. One game is a tiny sample, but the message from Kerr was clear and the next preseason game will show whether he heard it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
