The Warriors\u2019 freshman has spent his first weeks in the NBA antagonizing superstars, speaking his mind and emerging as one of the league\u2019s most compelling personalities<\/p>\n
If a screen-addled pickup basketball player teleported into the body of a high-level athlete, they might resemble Yaxel Lendeborg. The most commonly cited fact about Lendeborg is that he used to spend 12 to 14 hours a day gaming<\/a>, and didn\u2019t debut on his high school basketball team until he was an upperclassman. Professional athletes often have origin stories that resemble the superhero more than the mortal, but Lendeborg really was<\/em> just like us at one point. Lendeborg has also said that prior to entering the NBA, he didn\u2019t really watch it, either. The Puerto Rican forward racked up more than enough accolades in college to qualify for the NBA, including helming Michigan to their first national championship in 37 years<\/a>, but still. Any of you reading this could smoke the man who may be this season\u2019s rookie of the year in trivia about his profession.<\/p>\n The 24-year-old Lendeborg is a forward on the Golden State Warriors, a team caught between the ancient, gleaming remnants<\/a> of the most fearsome dynasty of the 2010s and its future. The balance didn\u2019t work out last season, as the Warriors produced flashes of old greatness to win one play-in game before flaming out in the next. Such results are a frustrating waste of Stephen Curry\u2019s wonderful form even at 38 years old. Lendeborg is the best hope in a while to help maximize it. But even more importantly, Lendeborg is the character of the season so far. He\u2019s spent its first two weeks antagonizing superstars, firing off unselfconscious takes in the press and vacuuming up the spotlight from his blander peers. What a joy to bear witness to an athlete who probably didn\u2019t even hear the words \u201cmedia training\u201d until college.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Warriors\u2019 freshman has spent his first weeks in the NBA antagonizing superstars, speaking his mind and emerging as one of the league\u2019s most compelling personalities If a screen-addled pickup basketball player teleported into the body of a high-level athlete, they might resemble Yaxel Lendeborg. The most commonly cited fact about Lendeborg is that he … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}