0-3, and Yaxel Lendeborg Is Why I'm Still Smiling

It's been a rough start. The rookie is why it doesn't feel finished.

I turned the Phoenix game off with four minutes left and then I turned it back on, which is the most Warriors thing I've done all week. We were already 0-2. Booker was cooking. The group chat had started the obituary before tip. I watched the rest of it on the couch, fog on the window, because one guy in a Warriors jersey hadn't read the standings.

I smiled.

Not a big one. The kind you get when the score is wrong and somebody on your team is playing like nobody told him.

His name is Yaxel Lendeborg. Say it once so it sticks. YAX-uhl. LEN-deh-borg. Rookie forward, eleventh pick in June, number 1, listed at 6-9 and 247 pounds, born in Puerto Rico, 24 since the last day of September. Arizona Western, then UAB, then Michigan. Kerr has started him all three games and he's played a little over 34 minutes a night. That's not a courtesy lap for a lottery pick you can hide in November.

Wednesday in Los Angeles was the quiet one, and the game around him wasn't. Lakers 127, Warriors 105. We put up 33 in the first quarter, then 19, then 16, and a 37 in the fourth that made the final look closer than the night felt. Steph had 23 in 21 minutes and finished minus 22. Lendeborg started next to him, with Melton, Gui Santos and Draymond, and the line was 12 points on 5 of 11, one three in four tries, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, a steal, 1 of 3 at the line, four fouls, no turnovers, minus 21 in 29 minutes. The first unit got buried together. I'm not pinning a 22 point loss on the rookie. I'm also not going to call 3 rebounds in 29 minutes, from a body that size, a good debut. The glass up here is faster than the college glass, and he looked like he found that out in real time.

Friday I can't tidy up. Home opener at Chase Center, Memphis, and we had a 12 point lead with four minutes left. Final was 111-108. I stood for those last two minutes and then I sat on the kitchen floor, because the tile is cooler and I didn't trust the couch. Curry played. Draymond played. Podziemski played his first game back from the back issue that wiped out Wednesday, 18 points and 3 steals. And the rookie stuffed it. 18 points, 13 rebounds, 7 of them offensive, 6 assists, 3 steals, 9 of 12 at the line, 37 minutes. He shot 4 of 11. He turned it over 6 times. He was minus 9 in a three point loss. Six turnovers will do that. A lot of those giveaways were him putting it on the floor and finding three defenders who had already decided to be there.

The passing and the glass are a forward you can win with. The handle in a crowd is still raw. Same tape. I'm not throwing the tape out because the ending made me sick.

Saturday in Phoenix he said, before tip, that he was going to have to be way more aggressive. The night took the choice away from everybody else. Curry was out with the right knee being managed. Horford's back kept him down. Butler is still out after the ACL repair, Moody after the patellar tendon repair, and Porzingis still isn't with the team. The names are on the depth chart if you want the full misery. Draymond didn't play. Podziemski sat the second night of the back to back. The starting five was Lendeborg, Santos, Graham Ike, Will Richard and Brandon Williams. Booker scored 43. We lost 131-122. We led 25-22 after one and then Phoenix put 45 on us in the third.

Lendeborg took 19 shots. He made 9. Six of his 11 threes went down, and we only made 17 threes all night, so the offense had a name. 26 points, 9 rebounds with 5 offensive, 5 assists, a block, 2 turnovers, zero fouls, plus 5, 36 minutes. Melton had 25 off the bench and Williams had 20, so don't let me turn this into a one man myth. He was the best thing we had in a loss. That sentence is also an admission that the guys who are usually the best thing weren't there.

Six.

Add it up, because somebody's going to ask. 56 points, 18.7 a game, 8.3 rebounds, 4.3 assists. 18 of 41 from the field, 8 of 18 from three, 12 of 18 at the line. Fourteen offensive rebounds. Eight turnovers, and six of them were Friday. The scoring went 12, then 18, then 26. The offensive boards went 2, then 7, then 5. The glass is the thing that repeated. The threes might be a skill and they might be a night in the desert. I don't get to know off 18 attempts. Anybody selling you a percentage off that sample is guessing, and I'm not going to do it with them.

56 points is the third most a Warriors rookie has scored in his first three games. The two names in front of him are Wilt Chamberlain, who had 120, and Joe Fulks, who had 68 in 1946. I looked it up because I wanted a smile I could justify, and I got one, and then I remembered three games is a weekend. Wilt is Wilt. I'm happy. I'm not commissioning the statue.

Six threes in one of your first three NBA games has a short list. Cedric Coward did it last year. Chris Duarte, Jalen Green, P.J. Washington, Trae Young. Lendeborg is the sixth. Nice room. The room doesn't check Nikola Jokic on Monday.

What I actually want from him is smaller than the box score, which is how I know I'm not spiraling. Keep attacking the glass. Keep getting to the line the way he did against Memphis, because Butler isn't here to do it and somebody has to. If the 8 of 18 from three cools off into something ordinary, live with it. The Friday night of 4 of 11 from the field is the number I trust more than a 6 of 11 from deep with the stars on the bench. And get the turnovers under Friday. The other two games were 0 and 2. Two a night is a starter. Six is a rookie who thinks the help is late. He's 24. That's old for a first year player and I mean it as a compliment. There isn't a five year mystery buried in the roster spot. There's a big forward who already plays, with one loud hole in the handle and a jumper that still has to prove Phoenix wasn't a hello.

He isn't doing this by himself. That's the other reason the 0-3 hasn't emptied me out.

Graham Ike is the other rookie. Undrafted out of Gonzaga, also 24, on a two way deal. Wednesday he got the fourth quarter of a game that was already gone and put up 8 points, a steal and a block, plus 12, in 12 minutes. Friday was his first start and it was a cameo: 10 points, two threes, 2 rebounds, 12 minutes. Saturday was a job. Second start, 26 minutes, 12 points, 10 rebounds, five of them offensive, 2 assists, and a 5 of 13 with four fouls. First double-double he's had in this league. We need the body. Horford is 40 and he can't play both ends of a back to back, and the roster we actually have doesn't include a healthy Porzingis. Ike can give you minutes that matter. He can also foul his way out of them. I'm excited about the double-double. I'm leaving him in pencil.

Podziemski is the one the front office already circled. Fourth year, Santa Clara, 23, all 82 games last season, a five year, $110 million extension already signed. The back cost him the opener. Friday he looked like the guy for a night: 18 points, 3 steals, a block, 3 assists, 33 minutes, and also 7 of 17, four turnovers, 2 boards. He sat Saturday. Until that back is boring, he's a tease. When it is boring, he's the other half of whatever this is while Curry's minutes get managed. I wrote in the summer that we were out of easy answers. I still think that. Podziemski and this rookie are two of the hard ones. Hard isn't the same thing as enough.

Will Richard is a year ahead of Lendeborg, and Saturday was the line you get when the rotation is a skeleton. 8 points and 5 boards on 4 of 5 shooting in 20 minutes on Wednesday. Three quiet minutes Friday. Then 11 points in Phoenix, 3 of 6 from three, 2 steals, a block, 31 minutes, and zero rebounds, so don't knight him. Second year guard from Florida. A rotation piece showed up. I'll take a rotation piece. Gui Santos has been in this longer than the rest of them. He started Wednesday with 12 and 5, put up 5 and 4 on Friday, and 7 points with 4 boards and 3 assists on Saturday. Steady. He's not the plot. The plot is that Kerr has young forwards he can put on the floor while the training room looks like that.

The record is still 0-3. First time we've opened this badly since 2007-08, and that team lost six in a row before it won 48. I will not order 48 wins off a trivia answer. Butler's knee is a long rehab. Moody's knee is a long rehab. Porzingis isn't with the team, and I'm not going to dress that up as load management. Curry sat a game to manage the knee. Draymond is 36 and he didn't play Saturday. The Memphis one is the loss that sits in my chest. Twelve points, four minutes, the home opener, Chase Center loud and then not. They earned the 0-3. A fun rookie line doesn't refund it.

Monday night we're in Denver, 7:00 at Ball Arena. I don't want another 19 shot showcase that only exists because the stars are sitting. I want the Friday version, the glass and the passes, with fewer adventures off the dribble, and I want Ike's minutes to show up while the game is still a game. If Podziemski's back lets him play, even better. The month is on the schedule. Who's actually available moves, and the live list is the injury report.

I'm not predicting a winning streak.

I smiled at a 6 of 11 from three in a nine point loss. The smile got smaller when I looked at the standings. It didn't leave.

Ask me again in December.

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