Yaxel Lendeborg continues beef with Luka Doncic postgame: ‘I lost all respect’ for him

LOS ANGELES — It says something about how Steve Kerr and the Warriors feel about Yaxel Lendeborg that, in the season opener, they started him and gave him the Luka Doncic defensive assignment.

Lesson No. 1 for the rookie: Don’t trash-talk Doncic. As the Slovenian himself said in his ESPN walk-off interview, “Everybody knows when somebody starts talking, you got a different me.” Not only did Lendeborg pick up a technical, but also when he really got in Doncic’s face, the Lakers went on a 13-4 run sparked by Doncic. And this happened.

That didn’t stop Lendeborg from continuing his beef with Doncic after the game.

Advertisement

“I had a lot of respect for him, you know, just watching,” Lendeborg said postgame. “I didn’t really watch the NBA much, I just watched highlights, seeing him kill people all the time. But then, being in there firsthand, just watching all the whining and complaining, I lost all respect, man. Like, that was awful. Me getting frustrated, it’s not about the foul call being called, it’s about him complaining the entire game. And then you get the foul call, congratulations, bro, and then you talk to me like you did something great, bro. Come on. That’s just weak.

“So, it kind of threw me off for a little while because, like I said, I had so much respect for him. Gone, man. Gone.”

Those comments came after Doncic spoke, and this is all Doncic said about it and the technical foul on Lendeborg.

“I mean, he was talking crazy,” Doncic said. “But you know I wasn’t trying to talk back. This season, not trying to get techs. So it’s the first time that that was not a double tech because I didn’t say nothing. So I’m working on it.”

Advertisement

Some quick thoughts on all this:

• Never change, Lendeborg. Don’t go through Raymond Ritter’s media training. Speak your mind.

• There are a lot of fans around the league who agree with Lendeborg about Doncic.

• It’s tough to talk trash when your team is getting trashed. The Lakers pulled away in the second quarter when Doncic got hot — and Curry got cold, the Warriors are banged up and have no offensive creators to speak of outside of him — and that came when…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/yaxel-lendeborg-continues-beef-luka-162449261.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-10-22 16:24:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.