There are about a hundred reasons why the Golden State Warriors can look at their annihilation at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs, in which Victor Wembanyama and company blowtorched the Dubs 123-85, and toss their 38-point loss out the window.
It was their first game without the all-encompassing Stephen Curry. They're missing about $157.2 million in salary between Curry, Jimmy Butler, Moses Moody, Kristaps Porzingis, and Brandon Williams sidelined with injuries. They faced the hottest team in the NBA and the best player in the world, as the Spurs extended their winning streak to 11.
Rationally, it's going to take some time to adjust without a guy as central to an offense as Curry is — any team missing their top guy is bound to trip and stumble.
But to Yaxel Lendeborg, the reasons mean little to him. And the 24-year-old rookie doesn't believe he's going to forget this shellacking anytime soon after mustering up just three points and seven rebounds on 1-of-13 shooting from the field in his first test as the Warriors' No. 1 guy.
“I'm not going to move past this,” a visibly stricken Lendeborg said to reporters in the Warriors' locker room after the loss, shaking his head with a thousand-mile stare in his eyes. “Everybody's saying throw it out the window — I can't throw a damn thing out the window. We just lost by like 100. So you know, I'm f****d up mentally right now.”
That was the tenor of Lendeborg as reporters lobbed their questions at the rookie fresh off of easily the worst performance of his young career.
When asked about what he could learn from this, Lendeborg shook his head, admitting he was flustered the entire game, as he ruminated on all the layups he missed. When asked what it was like to face the reigning Western Conference champion Spurs, Lendeborg condemned himself for the “weak-a** floaters” that he and the Dubs settled for because of Wembanyama's otherworldly shot-blocking abilities.
And when asked what got him flustered, all Lendeborg could do was dwell on the belief occupying every square inch of his head that he let his team down.
“First shot, in and out, I'm like, ‘Yup, it's going to be a bad day.' Next shot, I think I airballed a floater, I'm like, ‘Yeah man, it's over for the rest of the game,'” Lendeborg said, recounting all his misses in agonizing detail. “I was just pissed off. Tried three more floaters; I made one, missed the others. I don't know what the hell was going on with me. Couldn't make a shot, I was 1-for-13. That pretty much adds to everything. It was an awful performance by me. I let everybody on this team down.”
Steve Kerr confident Yaxel Lendeborg can rebound
But while Lendeborg was dragging himself through the wringer, his veteran coach Steve Kerr took a much more measured view of his rookie's tough night in San Antonio.
“There’s going to be nights like this, and so, the bounce-back is what’s most important,” Kerr said, expressing that he's not worried that Lendeborg's confidence will snowball into something bigger moving forward. “He’ll learn from this, just like he’s learning from every experience he’s having here in the early going.”
The lesson here for Lendeborg is being more aggressive. Since he arrived at training camp, the Warriors have pushed Lendeborg to abandon some of his pass-first instincts in favor of hunting his shot. They want him to realize that he's a big human being who can mash through most of the league if he decides to do so.
And while Lendeborg has adapted his mindset to be more aggressive in attacking on offense, all that confidence and assertiveness he displayed in his first 11 games this season seemed to evaporate into a puff of steam. Lendeborg knows this himself, hence his frustration.
Article Continues Below“I just wasn't being aggressive,” Lendeborg said when asked about his first experience facing Wembanyama and the Spurs. “(Wembanyama's) skinnier than me. I just got to go up there and put an elbow in his chest and jump into his body or something. If he blocks it, he blocks it. I can’t go up there scared.”
It's Lendeborg's “Welcome to the NBA” moment. He got a taste of the responsibility that comes with being the guy, and got blood in his mouth. He got the perspective on what it means to face the best player in the league and what it feels like to realize how far he and his team are from where Wembanyama and the Spurs are at.
And for better or worse, he's going to internalize it. How that pushes him forward, he and the Warriors will see in two days when they face a reeling New Orleans Pelicans team.
“I'm not going to forget this ever,” Lendeborg repeated. “It felt helpless out there, golly. I can't really hear much of what they're saying right now.”
The rookie motioned his hands toward his head, making a gripping motion to express where his mind is at currently.
“I'm cooked right now.”