“Little Too Much”: Jalen Brunson Has a Message for Warriors Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg After His Luka Doncic Comments
· Yahoo Sports
In his debut, Yaxel Lendeborg was impressive with his stats of stopping Luka Doncic. But his post-game talk of losing respect for the Slovenian became the bigger headline. Legends, analysts and former teammates already took sides.
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Yaxel has notably had the fewest points against the Lakers. 12 in the season opener and 6 in the NBA Cup game. But his first display had a noteworthy contribution, where he limited Luka Doncic to 1-6 from the field. The duo even exchanged several NSFW jabs, and Lendeborg was the one who received a technical for his part. And now Jalen Brunson made his position clear on the Golden State Warriors’ rookie’s trash-talking encounter.
“Playing great though,” Brunson said on his podcast, The Roommates Show. “I think like talking trash on the court or whatever is part of the game, whatever. We can say something to the media, but I feel like you just maybe said a little too much. You don’t gotta say everything that’s on your mind. Especially to the media.”
Before him, his Knicks teammate and co-host of the show, Josh Hart, made a similar assessment. “Maybe dialed down the little bit the media like ‘I have no respect for him’ or something. I don’t really have said it to media. And I think he might have said it, he was like, ‘yeah, I kind of did a little more, the most on that…’ Thing is good for the game, good, you know, when you do that, there’s always a level of energy, and that’s in the arena. So it’s cool.”
Hart’s critique preceded Brunson’s, establishing the Knicks stars’ shared position on Lendeborg’s media remarks
Both the Knicks’ stars clearly had no problem with Yaxel Lendeborg exchanging some jabs on the hardwood. But they drew a line on how the Warriors rookie expressed it to the media. After his debut, he said, “Lost all respect” towards Luka Doncic, as the Lakers star apparently complained too much.
As Josh Hart stated, Yaxel Lendeborg already had his peace with the incident. “I’m not afraid to talk to nobody. He’s not Michael Jordan,” he previously said. The Warriors star followed it up with “I feel like I did kinda take it overboard in the media, but it is what it is.”
Apart from the trash-talking incident, the 24-year-old has also caught attention for his hooping abilities. 8 games into the season, Lendeborg is averaging 21.5 points, 7 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and shooting 50% from the field. Despite being a rookie, he leads the Warriors in rebounding and is second in scoring, only behind Stephen Curry.
During his time at Michigan, Yaxel Lendeborg was not known as a prolific three-point shooter. Yet through just eight games this season, he has connected on an impressive 40% of his attempts from beyond the arc, broken several records, and begun drawing comparisons to some NBA greats.
His 37 points against the Clippers became the most any Warriors rookie had scored since Stephen Curry’s 42 in 2010. In fact, after just five games in his rookie year, Yaxel Lendeborg became just the sixth player in NBA history to register at least 100 points, 40 rebounds and 20 assists in their first five games.
That list includes icons and greats like Elgin Baylor, Connie Hawkins, Oscar Robertson, Maurice Stokes and Sidney Wicks. While the game against the Clippers was his season’s best, it also gave him another important lesson.
“I’ve never been a stat chaser in my life. So, I mean, uh, just falling into peer pressure like I did just now, uh, was pretty much bad on my part.”
Yaxel Lendeborg admitted afterward that his pursuit of 40 points nearly cost the Warriors. With 6:36 remaining, he buried a step-back three-pointer to reach 37, and his teammates, particularly De’Anthony Melton, urged him to chase the 40-point milestone.
The rookie took three more three-point attempts but missed them all. Golden State’s offense stalled, and the Clippers capitalized with a 16–4 run that trimmed a 21-point lead to just eight. Still, the Warriors regained control late and secured a 124–112 victory, with Lendeborg finishing at a career-high 37 points.
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