- 6 minutes ago
Willard and Dibs react to the way the Warriors are talking about Yaxel Lendeborg as he begins his first training camp in the NBA. What does this say about their confidence in him right now?
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Steve Kerr, Yaxl.
00:02Yaxl had a great summer, not only in summer league, but in our building,
00:06pick up games, individual work.
00:09He's clearly going to play a ton.
00:13He gives us the size and the versatility that we need.
00:19He can guard bigs, he can guard wings.
00:21He's a connector on offense, really good passer, ball handler.
00:26I always try to check boxes with guys, evaluating them, dribble, pass, shoot, process.
00:33He checks all those boxes.
00:35He's really an exciting young player for us, and he's going to play a ton,
00:40whether he's a starter or coming off the bench.
00:42That will be determined the next couple weeks.
00:44Tremendous pause by Steve Kerr there, my B.
00:47Anyway.
00:48It's five yards.
00:49It's fine.
00:50We got Brock Purdy.
00:51We'll get a first down anyway.
00:51Anyway, so that's Steve Kerr's outlook on Yaxl.
00:56And it's not just the whole, like, clearly he's going to play a lot.
00:59That, to me, is circumstantial and situational, and we knew that.
01:03It's more all of the other stuff.
01:05He's a connector.
01:06He can guard everywhere.
01:08He's this.
01:08He's that.
01:09And that has spilled over to the players as well.
01:13And I'm not here to, because I don't think this,
01:16I'm not here to say this is a bad thing.
01:17It's a fascinating one, though, because what I'm betting is not one of us can come up
01:24with another example of when these particular human beings have done this.
01:29Listen to Jimmy Butler.
01:31He's massive.
01:32Like, he is a big human being.
01:35He shoots the ball so incredibly well.
01:37He's smart.
01:38He wants to learn.
01:40He's a winning player.
01:41I think whenever you bring in younger guys, they all just want to get busy
01:47and get to it right away, scoring and doing all of these things.
01:50And he can do that at a high level.
01:53But all the questions that he asks, it's about how I can help to win.
01:57And that's what you get whenever you get a guy that's played in college a couple years.
02:00They know what it takes to win, and they know it's not all about scoring.
02:04It's not all about this and that.
02:06And I think that's what I was most impressed by is, like, what you want me to do?
02:10I'm going to be able to do it, and it's going to end in the result of winning.
02:14Okay, so, like, I love that they're loving what they see.
02:18But what is interesting to me is that they have been willing to say this
02:23into a microphone or a camera well before he ever actually plays in an NBA game.
02:30This is the house where rookies don't play.
02:32It's because the rookies that you had had in the past are rookies who were either taken,
02:38and I'm looking at the list here.
02:39You got Kavon Looney was taken 30th, and then Damian Jones, 30th, Jacob Evans, 28th,
02:46Jordan Poole, 28th.
02:48Then you get to Wiseman, who was a baby, and Kaminga, who also was very young in the league.
02:53So you finally get a lottery pick of somebody, and Moses Moody, I think it was 19 when he
02:58was a lottery pick.
02:59Now you have this lottery pick.
03:01And, Jimmy, I loved what he said off the top of his comment, which he is big as blank.
03:05He's bleeping huge.
03:06He's huge.
03:07He's huge, and he's a grown man already because he's 24, and he went through all of the rigors
03:12of a long college career.
03:14He won the natty, and he is now ready to go as a 24-year-old grown-up.
03:19I get it.
03:20But then again, Jimmy Butler wasn't here for any of that stuff.
03:23I've never heard accomplished Hall of Fame dudes, or at least it's very rare, put this
03:30kind of juice on the name of someone who's never played a game before.
03:34Draymond Green, Draymond Green Show.
03:37When you're in an environment without coaches, how guys act, how guys respond to each other,
03:42how the runs are going, all these different things.
03:44Like, it makes a difference.
03:45You have new guys on the team.
03:47You're breaking the ice.
03:48It's like getting to know each other before you step in that stressful grind of training
03:52camp.
03:52Spend some time with young guys.
03:54Get asked a million questions by Yaxo, which is absolutely incredible.
03:58By the way, Yaxo's talked a lot of shit.
04:00That kid can play.
04:01Now, I don't want to put some expectations on him because the NBA game is different, man.
04:05You get in that season with them lights on, and it moves fast.
04:08Like, Kawhi Leonard tonight is Kevin Durant the next night.
04:11Like, it's hard, but he can play.
04:13He understands the game.
04:14He's smart.
04:15This was really my first time getting eyes on him in person.
04:18Shoot the **** out of the basketball.
04:20I was very, very, very impressed.
04:22I'm excited to see where he can take it.
04:26Six weeks ago on the Draymond Green Show, he's like, this dude talks a lot of ass, and
04:33we're going to see you in training camp.
04:35Training camp is coming.
04:36We're going to see you, Yaxo.
04:37Training camp is coming.
04:39Well, then training camp got here, and Draymond went, oh, shoots it well, thinks it well,
04:47says the right things, asks the right questions, does all this, that, and the other on the court.
04:52I mean, they, listen, here's my take on it.
04:56I think this is wonderful because I think it's real.
05:00Like, I look at this through the lens of those other two rookies that we talked about this summer.
05:06Remember, Bryce Eldridge came up and showed he's a big leaguer and a good one already, 21 years old.
05:12The Giants kind of tiptoed into those waters, if you remember.
05:15They brought him up and then wouldn't play him and annoyed us, drove us nuts batting through the roof.
05:22And then he's finally started playing and went, look, I'm here.
05:25I'm staying.
05:25I am going to be what you hoped I would be.
05:29That's one thing.
05:30He's done it at the big league level.
05:32Then Stribling went through his August.
05:35And Stribling, unfortunately, had his season get derailed one quarter in.
05:39But I'm still a huge believer for one main reason.
05:42Kyle Shanahan doesn't do that.
05:44Kyle Shanahan doesn't draft rookie receivers and then have him lead the team in snap count one quarter into the
05:52season
05:52against the supposed best team in the league.
05:54He doesn't do that historically.
05:56And he doesn't do that with running backs, and here he is with Kaelan Black, same thing.
05:59So that means that something happened in the month of August to gain Kyle Shanahan's trust from those rookies that
06:06is special.
06:07And now it appears Yaxel, prior to the season even starting, is doing the exact same thing.
06:13So my take on this is it's awesome.
06:16But I'm not going to remove from this that there is a pitfall here.
06:19Like, it is.
06:21You are putting a lot on his shoulders.
06:23If he can handle it, great.
06:25They clearly think he can.
06:27I've never heard Steve Kerr, Draymond Green, Jimmy Butler, or quite frankly, any players of that level post-30 years
06:35old
06:35put this kind of praise out there for someone who's never played a game.
06:42Yep.
06:43And I think it's because of the reality of his situation.
06:46And we should probably send out a special shout-out to Yaxel Lendeborg, who turned 24 today.
06:53And he's out on September 30th.
06:55That's a fact.
06:56Damn!
06:56That's a stat.
06:57Happy birthday!
06:57He's now 24 and he's out there doing the Hawaiian thing.
07:01But I like what Draymond said about when the coaches aren't around and you're out there just playing pickup, how
07:07do you handle it?
07:08And so if you are a highly drafted rookie and he is, and there's no coaches and you're just playing
07:14pickup, well, you can come in and think, okay, I'm the Casey Schmidt around here.
07:19I'm the number one pick in this year's draft and I'm lottery.
07:22And yeah, watch me cook.
07:23Or you can come in, like Draymond said, and he's out there asking question after question and he's really trying
07:28to pick our brain and he's doing things the right way.
07:31So when you're a rookie, no matter how old you are, but when you're 24, I think you come in
07:36with a certain amount of maturity already built in because you are 24.
07:40And he went through what he went through where, you know, he wasn't even sure if he was going to
07:44be able to have a successful college career.
07:47And then he did and you're a lottery pick.
07:49And so I think that he's got a certain amount of maturity and hunger that most rookies don't have.
07:53Let's take some calls.
07:54Keep them coming.
07:55888-957-9570.
07:57Ron in the East Bay.
07:58Hi, Ron.
07:59Thanks for calling, ma'am.
08:01Thanks for taking my call.
08:02I love your show.
08:03You guys make me laugh about 20 times an hour.
08:06That's the hope.
08:06You asked me to call last week.
08:08You asked me to call last week when we were talking about Bosa and how my coach PK, when we
08:13were in Ketsamah, Idaho, the Wood River.
08:16We swim out to the bullard, the concrete thing that held the bridge up.
08:21And on the left-hand side was the deep current and it was cold water, but it's the middle of
08:28summer.
08:29You could only be in the water for about 15, 20 minutes when you got a teeny weenie.
08:33And then on the leeward side, the current was a little bit less and it was only about five to
08:39six feet deep and we'd have to seal.
08:42We'd have to act like a seal, put our hands behind our back, grab our trunks and try to swim
08:46up the river.
08:47Yeah.
08:47Okay.
08:47And then we had to go grab a river stone.
08:51There was so many of us that were injured trying to rehab.
08:54And this was in the off season before football.
08:56I wanted to be a wide receiver for Cal or something, but yeah, I was injured.
09:00Does anybody know what the hell's happening right now?
09:02I do.
09:02And, uh...
09:03Hey, hey, Ron.
09:04We love that.
09:05Ron, I'll try to bring Mark up to speed.
09:08What the hell's going on right now?
09:09What's going on is last week when you were all about getting Oasis tickets, you were in the queue.
09:15And so Ron and I had a lengthy conversation about the Ketchum River, about Riverstones.
09:20I don't think we got to teeny weenie, so that's a new update.
09:24You also said that he asked you to...
09:26Did you ask him to call in?
09:28I'm actually...
09:29And talk about Bosa?
09:30What happened was...
09:31Did you call Ron and ask him to call you back?
09:33What happened was, Mark, I asked for him to be put on hold so we could direct him to
09:38the Niners because he's got...
09:39And then you hung up on him.
09:40I hung up on him.
09:41Yes, because you were in the queue for Oasis tickets, so I didn't exactly ask Ron to call
09:46back, but I was hoping to get Ron in touch with the Niners.
09:48Okay.
09:49That way, if they have an issue with, I don't know, Riverstones or teeny weenies, he might
09:53be the guy to help them.
09:55Well, first off, we are going to the Oasis show.
09:58It is still almost a year away.
09:59Great.
10:00Secondarily.
10:01That's why you missed that entire call last week.
10:03My God, thank you for explaining.
10:06I still don't know anything about what Ron just said to us, though.
10:10And, like, Ron, so here at 95.7 The Game headquarters, the way a radio show works, and I think
10:19a lot
10:19of you know this, the way the...
10:21So there's a board in front of us.
10:22I know a lot of you think that what's on there is like a teleprompter or something that
10:27tells us what to say.
10:27Not true.
10:28Um, this brilliance just gets made up as we go along somehow.
10:32But, no, thank you.
10:35There is a board that has names and city, and the third thing, what the person would like
10:44to address if they're going to come on the air.
10:46And what yours says, Ron, is, uh, Curry and Steve Kerr.
10:52And then, about 90 seconds into the call, did I...
10:57Maybe I was on in the queue.
10:59Did I miss some Curry and some Steve Kerr?
11:03There was something about Bosa and the water.
11:06There was water.
11:08Ron, did you want to talk about Curry and Kerr?
11:12Yes, sir.
11:14Um, my first thing is, uh, an unimpeded player of my choice was Andre Iguodala.
11:19Okay.
11:19The Warriors.
11:20And then, uh, I want to ask you a question.
11:22What happened on February 12th, 2018?
11:26And why has that made Steve Kerr the one of the best coaches ever?
11:30February 12th, 2018.
11:34Hmm.
11:35It's right around the, uh, trade deadline just before the All-Star break.
11:39Phoenix by 46, according to my, my quick research, uh...
11:44Yeah, Ron, do, do what you've been doing and educate us.
11:47And confuse us.
11:49Okay.
11:50Um, it was coached by committee.
11:52Early in the first, they'd kind of been on a losing streak before they got to Phoenix.
11:56Right.
11:56And Steve Kerr got frustrated, so he handed the board to Andre Iguodala.
12:01And then Andre handed it, at the next play, handed it to Draymond Green.
12:04And they kept passing it around.
12:05It was, this is a white play.
12:06So, do the next play.
12:07I got the next play.
12:09So, that's what made that team so successful, is that he trusted the team.
12:14And then about Steve, um, Steph Curry, um, like I said earlier, um, with, um, Guru and
12:22that show, about who'd be a three-position player.
12:25Just go to the corners and stand on the logo.
12:27Don't run around.
12:28Make every young kid run around for you.
12:31Take your shot.
12:32That's what you got.
12:33Oh, I heard this earlier, and then you called Steini Willard.
12:36Ron, thank you very much.
12:38Ron, for the, uh, the callback.
12:39He did the, take your shot, it's all you got.
12:42Thank you, Willard.
12:43And, uh, I don't know if he thought that Steini was Willard, or if he got caught up, because
12:47that's your catchphrase?
12:48Um, I did, I heard that.
12:50But I was kind of in the other room, and by the time I got to the smart speaker to
12:54hear
12:54what the hell was going on, um, they were playing the drops of, like, Willard's bugging
12:59me.
12:59Yeah.
12:59Or whatever the hell that, the Steini thing is.
13:02Um, so, okay.
13:04Now I'm starting to put puzzle pieces together, but I'll admit, not all of them.
13:07No, it's impossible to do that.
13:09Not all of them.
13:10On that date that he's referencing, sure, uh, Iguodala was the head coach.
13:15You won by 46.
13:17Omri Caspi with a double-double for the Warriors.
13:19For those of you who can, uh, remember the Omri Caspi era.
13:22I do believe the Warriors not just, uh, trusted one another, but had a lots of good players,
13:27uh, back in, uh, 2018.
13:30So, there's that.
13:31Anyway, thank you, Ron.
13:32Um, but, uh, also, the conversation can continue over, A, whether or not this is the right way
13:41for the Warriors to do this, which is to really build Yaxo up in the public prior to
13:49him actually playing.
13:50They are, there's no way around it.
13:53They are building blocks of expectations.
13:56They're, like, I don't think we can avoid that.
13:59That's just true.
14:00When I listen to those three bites, that's what happens to me.
14:04It's going to build excitement, but it's also going to build expectation.
14:08If they are 1,000% confident that he can handle that and, and will pay off, then no issue,
14:15because the excitement is a good thing.
14:17Warrior fans need that right now.
14:19Um, but the other point that I want to make is I have never heard this from these guys
14:24before, ever.
14:26Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green are dudes who, in this league, have been built by the idea
14:33of making young guys pay their dues.
14:36In fact, at times, to their detriment.
14:40Both of them.
14:41Both of them.
14:42Draymond Green punched a young teammate.
14:44Jimmy Butler famously grabbed all of the subs and, and, and beat the starters in Minnesota.
14:54And, and basically went to the locker room and ripped all of the other starters on the team.
14:59Like, these guys have had, I'm not going to say poor, because I think that they have been
15:05wonderful Hall of Fame players in this league, and I know that they've been a mentor to many.
15:11But they have had a bit of a checkered sort of a past with regard to this subject matter.
15:17I don't know.
15:18And maybe it's just their age and the situation of the team, but I've never heard them sit
15:22down and talk about a rookie and make him sound like he's a star before opening night.
15:28And I wonder if, you know, either one of those guys has ever had a rookie like this.
15:32And I'm just thinking about what you were laying out about the Minnesota experience where it
15:37was, uh, he's like a cat, Carl Anthony Towns, early kitty cat.
15:40And you had, this is Andrew Wiggins, and you had other young players that were not cut from
15:46the same cloth as it seems that Yaxel Lendeborg is.
15:49And for the Warriors, we know they've never had a rookie like this.
15:52You've had younger rookies.
15:54You had somewhat experienced guys taking 30th in the first round, like Kavon Looney, Jacob
15:59Evans.
16:00You never would have put these expectations on them.
16:03Yaxel's older.
16:04He's got a lot of experience in college basketball and he's kind of feeling himself.
16:09And so I think that that makes it to where you could look at him and say, yeah, we'll
16:14go ahead and put a lot more on his plate right now.
16:16Well, I tell you what, it also makes me think, and I, it's not just because these guys started
16:21talking about it publicly.
16:22You and I have had some good conversations, I think, over the last few months about Yaxel's
16:26personality, which we are still getting to know, but it's big.
16:29It's very, very big.
16:31He is very confident.
16:33You heard Draymond say, he talks a lot of S.
16:36And I do think that these guys in a way are responding to that.
16:40What people at the professional sports level love, they love it when someone will come
16:46in very confident, not cocky, but confident if they also see that they've got the goods
16:53to back it up.
16:54And that has to be what they're seeing.
16:57They have to be confident that this guy is going to have the goods to back it up.
17:01And do you remember when Bryce Eldridge a number of weeks ago was like, I want to be the future
17:06face of the Giants.
17:07And it fired everybody up.
17:09And then pods through the years has sort of dabbled with that, that thought and it ticked
17:14everyone off.
17:15Well, I'm telling you right now, based on all of the immeasurables, forget the box score,
17:22we're going to get there.
17:23But based on all the immeasurables, I feel like the guy who could be, will have the opportunity
17:31to be the next face of the Warriors after Steph Curry is here.
17:37And it is this guy.
17:38And it's not because I have no idea what he's going to do on the basketball court, but we're
17:42getting to know who he is.
17:43And he has the personality and the confidence to handle the role.
17:48That's what I'm noticing.
17:50And he also has the body and potentially the skill set to handle the role.
17:54And this is not to disrespect pods because you and I like him more than the majority
17:59of Warrior fans.
18:00But when you are a six foot three combo guard, kind of a player who can't really elevate and
18:06go up and over people, he's more destined to be a role player on a really good team.
18:11Whereas Yax Elendeborg with his frame and what he can do from, you know, behind the arc
18:17and Draymond was talking about how he can flat out shoot it.
18:20He has more of a high ceiling than pods.