3 Things Yaxel Lendeborg Can Work on After Warriors' Summer League Title

The Golden State Warriors won the Las Vegas Summer League championship on Sunday, and Yaxel Lendeborg was named the Summer League MVP.

Suffice to say, he showed way more good than bad.

Among his strengths are clutch play (expanded on here), perimeter shooting (45.9 percent from three), playmaking on offense (4.0 assists per game) and playmaking on defense (2.3 combined steals and blocks per game).

Lendeborg was the most impactful rookie on the court for both of Golden State's summer-league playoff games. I was high on him coming into the draft, and his summer-league performance has me even more encouraged.

But there are some things he can work on.

On-Ball Defense

It's already obvious that Lendeborg's self-awareness is much higher than it is for most NBA players.

Just look at what he had to say about things he can work on:

"I keep hearing that my hips are stiff, so I got to figure out how to loosen up my hips," Lendeborg said. "A lot of I’ve been hearing too is like a point-of-attack defender, something like that. So I want to try to work on those two things, just the little things to fix that up."

Anyone is 6'9" and 250 pounds isn't going to move incredibly fast laterally. So staying in front of ball-handlers may never be a Lendeborg strength.

But still, he gave up too many blow-bys in summer league. It's possible his lack of conditioning had something to do with it.

On the positive end of the spectrum, he had some good reps against Cameron Boozer in the summer-league final.

Defensive Awareness

This feels like the smallest issue of the three because it's a challenge for anyone to play with an entirely new group of people.

With that said, Lendeborg got lost a few times when he should have been rotating or when the Warriors were in zone.

You'd think those issues will get ironed out in training camp. Lendeborg is too smart to have major awareness issues.

But the one thing that has a decent chance to be a problem is how much space he gives shooters.

When guarding a shooter from one pass away, Lendeborg was often a bit too focused on what the driver might do, leaving him a step too far away once the pass was made.

Lendeborg is so big that the Warriors shouldn't want him chasing shooters on the perimeter anyway, but it's inevitable that he'll have to guard some.

Passing Was Too Risky

The Warriors allowed Lendeborg to be the pick-and-roll ball-handler at times. My guess is he won't get many reps doing that in NBA games, but credit the Warriors for giving Lendeborg a chance to work on his skill set.

Lendeborg would consistently try to thread the needle to Graham Ike or whoever the roller was.

That resulted in some turnovers, but in fairness, it also resulted in some assists.

In the championship game, Lendeborg tried a one-handed full-court bounce pass that would have been a highlight had it connected. But it didn't, making it an avoidable turnover.

Overall, Lendeborg's vision is a huge plus. He consistently reads the play correctly. That's a difficult skill to teach.

But part of being a great passer is knowing when not to throw it.

Overall, Lendeborg had 32 assists and 19 turnovers in summer league. Not bad numbers by any means, but he's capable of having a much better assist-to-turnover ratio if he cuts out some of the high-risk passes.

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