‘I lost all respect’: Rookie calls out Luka Doncic for ‘whining and complaining’
· Yahoo Sports
Yaxel Lendeborg’s NBA debut didn’t go the way he wanted, as the Golden State Warriors were blown out by the Los Angeles Lakers on opening night. But the rookie certainly made sure that people would be talking about him afterward.
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Lendeborg spent much of Wednesday’s game going back and forth with Lakers star Luka Doncic, and he picked up a technical foul in the process. Afterward, he didn’t hold back, saying that he “lost all respect” for Doncic because of the way he begs for foul calls.
Heated Debut
With Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody out injured, the Warriors started Lendeborg on the wing and had him guard Doncic for much of the game. He held his own, holding Doncic to 1-of-6 shooting as the primary defender, according to Anthony Slater of ESPN.
But the Lakers still rolled to a 127-105 win, building a lead as large as 35 points. Doncic finished with 28 points.
Things got heated late in the second quarter, when Doncic pump-faked Lendeborg into a shooting foul and let him know about it. The two kept jawing at each other, and Lendeborg was eventually hit with a technical foul.
Doncic got the last laugh at the end of the first half, banking in a 48-foot heave at the buzzer and then pointing and laughing at Lendeborg.
“He kind of lured him in a little bit,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I thought the single technical was ridiculous. They were jawing at each other. I think it was the words Yaxel used that got him the T. But then Luka makes the half-court shot and gets in his face. That should be a tech.”
‘I Lost All Respect’
Lendeborg, who finished with 12 points in 29 minutes, made it clear after the game that he wasn’t impressed with Doncic. And a clip of his comments quickly went viral.
“I had a lot of respect for him [because] I didn’t really watch the NBA much,” Lendeborg said, via ESPN. “I just watched highlights and seen him kill people. But being in it firsthand and seeing all the whining and complaining, I lost all respect.”
“That was awful,” Lendeborg continued. “Me getting frustrated, it’s not about the foul being called, it’s about him complaining the entire game.”
“You get the foul call. Congratulations, bro,” he added. “Then you talk to me like you did something great. C’mon, dog. That [stuff] is weak. It kind of threw me off because I have so much respect for him. Gone, man. Gone.”
Lendeborg also admitted that he spent the whole game letting Doncic hear about it.
“I was telling him he sucks,” Lendeborg said. “He can’t score on me. You talk but you can’t score on me. I said it the whole game. I said a couple cuss words, obviously. That’s why I got the technical. But I was letting him know.”
And he had a blunt assessment of the league as a whole.
“I guess this is what the NBA is like, man,” Lendeborg said. “A lot of flopping, a lot of foul baiting, a lot of praying to the refs, man. Interesting first game for me.”
Doncic didn’t seem too bothered by the comments from Lendeborg or their on-court arguments.
“He was talking crazy,” Doncic said. “But I wasn’t trying to talk back. This season, I’m not trying to get techs.”
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