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Well, Wednesday sure was a bad day for Bay Area basketball. A should-have-been thrilling doubleheader began with disappointment when the Golden State Valkyries were blown out by the Atlanta Dream in Game 3 of the WNBA Finals, and ended with disappointment when the Golden State Warriors were blown out by the Los Angeles Lakers in their first game of the season.
It can only get better from here … I hope. Maybe I just jinxed things.
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With the first game tragically in the books, it’s time to break out the red pen for the first time this season, and dole out some grades. Spoiler alert: they won’t be very good!
As is always the (admittedly strange) rubric around here, grades are based on my expectations for each individual player, with a “B” grade considered the average for that player.
Note: True-shooting percentage (TS) is a scoring efficiency metric that accounts for threes and free throws. Last year, league-average TS was 58.1%.
Gui Santos
25 minutes, 12 points, 5 rebounds, 1 steal, 1 foul, 5-for-10 shooting, 1-for-3 threes, 1-for-2 free throws, 55.2% TS, -14
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Statistically, Santos had one of the better games for the Warriors. But it’s hard to get over just how much he was alone on a haunted island every time Luka Dončić attacked him. Mind you, Dončić is one of the greatest scorers to ever live, so having a rough go defending him is not exactly a fatal flaw; if it were, there wouldn’t be enough players to field an NBA team, let alone 30 of them. But this was a particularly uncompetitive matchup, which is part of why Steve Kerr tried so hard to make sure that Santos didn’t end up with that assignment throughout the game.
Good energy and hustle as always, but not a very competitive showing until the white flag was coming out.
Grade: C-
Post-game bonus: Tied for the team lead in rebounds
Yaxel Lendeborg
29 minutes, 12 points, 3 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 4 turnovers, 5-for-11 shooting, 1-for-4 threes, 1-for-3 free throws, 48.7% TS, -21
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From a strictly basketball standpoint, Lendeborg had a lot to like and a lot to work on in his NBA debut. But from an entertainment standpoint? He…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/warriors-vs-lakers-player-grades-070845099.html
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Publish date : 2026-10-22 07:08:00
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