The high school class of 2020 produced one of the most hyped collections of top-ranked prospects in recent memory. Jalen Green, Terrence Clarke, and Josh Christopher were household names from early in their teenage years for mixtape compilations that drew comparisons to Kobe Bryant and other star scorers. Jalen Suggs was a two-sport stud who bypassed an Ohio State football scholarship because he was better at basketball. Scottie Barnes and Evan Mobley were portable, long-limbed defensive prodigies, and Cade Cunningham shot up to the top of the class after a stirring EYBL run that had him looking like American Luka Doncic.

Yaxel Lendeborg was also in the class of 2020, but while his peers were gracing the cover of SLAM and winning international gold medals, he had yet to play organized basketball. Lendeborg’s grades weren’t good enough to get on the court back in his hometown of Pennsauken, New Jersey, and he was more interested in playing video games than applying himself to anything that would better his future. It’s possible his enormous talent would have slipped through the cracks entirely if not for a junior college on the other side of the country taking a chance on him with its last scholarship in a Covid-shortened season following an impressive weekend at an exposure camp for Dominican players.

Nearly six years later, Lendeborg already looks like something close to an NBA star as a 24-year-old rookie with the Golden State Warriors. His winding journey from Arizona Western College to UAB to Michigan to now playing alongside Stephen Curry has no real analog, but it still offers some valuable insight into how prospect evaluation is changing in a rapidly evolving landscape for young players. Lendeborg is an exception to just about every rule in the sport, but his ascent is no accident, and it could inform similar success stories in the coming years for teams looking hard enough.

What Lendeborg is doing to open this season is nothing short of amazing. He’s averaging 22.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 3.7 assists on pristine 64.5% true shooting through his first seven games. His 37-point explosion against the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday showed the full extent of his skill set. When he was guarded by the skinnier Derrick Jones Jr., Lendeborg wielded body blows in the paint for easy scoring chances. When Brook Lopez tried to corral him in drop coverage off a pick-and-roll, Lendeborg calmly drained a pull-up three-pointer. He showed impressive body control when attacking downhill, and relentless aggression in punishing a small guard in Darius Garland on switches. With a like-sized defender in Kobe Sanders on him, he ripped mid-range shots like a seasoned pro.

No rookie should be capable of this type of immediate excellence. Then again, Lendeborg is anything but a typical rookie.

The Warriors drafted Lendeborg at No. 11 overall this year, but even they weren’t fully convinced he was the player they needed. Golden State reportedly coveted Brayden Burries, who went one pick ahead of them to the Milwaukee Bucks, and they were prepared to select him over Lendeborg. Yaxel’s own college coach passed on him for one of his Michigan teammates when the Dallas Mavericks chose Morez Johnson at No. 9 overall days after hiring Dusty May.

It was easy to see the track record of older first round draft picks and immediately write off Lendeborg as a low-ceiling prospect. I never bought that argument. When I ranked Yaxel at No. 5 overall on my final draft board, I wrote “I typically balk at the idea that older prospects are more ‘NBA ready’ than younger ones who reach the league sooner, but it feels true in Yaxel’s case.” In reality, he was never that difficult of an evaluation if you could get past his age.

What sold me on Lendeborg was that he was improving in the exact ways you want someone his age to improve, albeit at a lower level than the NBA. When he entered UAB from junior college, he was mostly a rebounding big who provided value by generating extra possessions and protecting the paint. In his second season at UAB, he started to show off his playmaking chops, showing that he could run offense with the ball in his hands by using his own scoring gravity to set up his teammates. He also doubled his three-point makes from the previous season. As his offense was starting to develop, Lendeborg was named AAC Defensive Player of the Year while mostly playing center.

Lendeborg was good enough to get drafted in the first round in 2025 out of UAB. After testing the process at the combine, though, he decided to take a massive NIL bag from Michigan as the top-rated player in the transfer portal. As I was covering the Wolverines during March Madness, I asked Yaxel what he heard from NBA scouts that convinced him to go back to college. His answer showed the self-awareness required to go from good to great on your own timeline.

“(The NBA) wanted to see a lot more three-pointers and a lot more versatility in my defense,” Lendeborg told SB Nation. “I tried to be more of three, because in the NBA, I’m not gonna be the superstar. I’m gonna be playing next to somebody like Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, and he doesn’t need me to score for him. He needs me to get stops. I just tried to figure out my role and do whatever I can do to get there.”

Michigan’s unique team-building strategy forced Lendeborg into the exact role NBA evaluators wanted to see him in. May started three nominal college centers next to each other who were each good enough to have a team built around them on their own. Lendeborg’s malleability was the biggest reason it all worked. Forced out to the perimeter full-time for the first time in his brief career, Yaxel showed he could shoot threes with volume, defend away from the paint, and grease the offense with connective passing all without losing his physicality at both ends.

Lendeborg proved he was willing to sacrifice for team success, and he never needed to put up the biggest numbers to answer the NBA’s questions. Here was a player with the size to play NBA center after measuring at 6’8.5 without shoes, 235 pounds with a 7’4 wingspan who already showed he could play alongside other bigs while contributing to winning at a high level. He could do the role player stuff of rebounding, setting screens, spacing the floor, and moving the ball as a passer, and he still had an extra gear as an isolation scorer who could leverage his size into more efficient chances. All the while, he kept getting more confident and more accurate as an outside shooter.

The scary thing about Lendeborg is his most impressive flashes haven’t translated to sustainable success … yet. Through seven games, he’s only making 25% of his pull-up threes on 3.4 attempts per game. If those start falling even at a clip in the low 30s, there’s no real cap on his ceiling.

So many young forwards get drafted high in the NBA just because they have the frame, athleticism, and pedigree the league looks for. In the best case scenarios, these players will develop as passers and shooters without losing their physicality in their age-21, age-22, and age-23 seasons. This is exactly what Lendeborg did first at UAB and then at Michigan, and his development curve is made even more impressive by his late start in the sport.

His progression as a player is even more satisfying when juxtaposed against another former Warriors lottery pick who graduated high school in 2020: Jonathan Kuminga. Kuminga was never asked to play a winning role with physicality early in his career when evaluators saw a potential star scorer. He never developed the ball skills or shooting that Lendeborg is showing now. Yaxel’s progression shouldn’t have been discounted just because it happened in college, not the NBA. In every other way, he was giving scouts everything they wanted.

The two best players in college basketball last year were Yaxel and Cameron Boozer, and no one else was close to him. This is what made Boozer the obvious No. 1 overall pick in my eyes: he was the only player in the country close to Lendeborg’s level, and he did it while being five years younger than him. While there’s plenty of season left to go, it’s no surprise that Lendeborg and Boozer have been the two best rookies to start this season.

Lendeborg checked every box for a role player, and in the NBA, the best role players are truly more valuable than many who get blessed as stars. Yaxel is a premium example of that. The NIL is going to keep good players in school longer before, and don’t be surprised if some of the top prospects in the next draft are also multi-year college veterans, if not 24-year-old rookies. It’s easy to say progress isn’t linear when watching young basketball players, but it’s harder to act like it when the chips are on the table. Lendeborg was always running his own race. Right now, he’s showing he can still finish first even with a late start.