The Warriors’ freshman has spent his first weeks in the NBA antagonizing superstars, speaking his mind and emerging as one of the league’s most compelling personalities

If a screen-addled pickup basketball player teleported into the body of a high-level athlete, they might resemble Yaxel Lendeborg. The most commonly cited fact about Lendeborg is that he used to spend 12 to 14 hours a day gaming, and didn’t debut on his high school basketball team until he was an upperclassman. Professional athletes often have origin stories that resemble the superhero more than the mortal, but Lendeborg really was just like us at one point. Lendeborg has also said that prior to entering the NBA, he didn’t really watch it, either. The Puerto Rican forward racked up more than enough accolades in college to qualify for the NBA, including helming Michigan to their first national championship in 37 years, but still. Any of you reading this could smoke the man who may be this season’s rookie of the year in trivia about his profession.

The 24-year-old Lendeborg is a forward on the Golden State Warriors, a team caught between the ancient, gleaming remnants of the most fearsome dynasty of the 2010s and its future. The balance didn’t work out last season, as the Warriors produced flashes of old greatness to win one play-in game before flaming out in the next. Such results are a frustrating waste of Stephen Curry’s wonderful form even at 38 years old. Lendeborg is the best hope in a while to help maximize it. But even more importantly, Lendeborg is the character of the season so far. He’s spent its first two weeks antagonizing superstars, firing off unselfconscious takes in the press and vacuuming up the spotlight from his blander peers. What a joy to bear witness to an athlete who probably didn’t even hear the words “media training” until college.

Our writers give their verdicts on the new season, which tips off Tuesday. Who will claim the title? And which youngster will make the superstar leap?

Seeing all the fruits borne of an incredible summer of player movement. It feels like three years ago that Giannis Antetokounmpo was traded to the Heat, because since then, Jaylen Brown and LeBron James went to the 76ers, and a ton of other deck chairs were reshuffled. This is the most intriguing NBA opening week in eons. Claire de Lune

As LeBron James and other NBA stars wholeheartedly embrace the murk of betting and prediction markets, the San Antonio Spurs’ 22-year-old cornerstone has drawn a refreshing line

If the song from LeBron James’s agonizing Polymarket ad is as stuck in your head as mine thanks to the commercial playing during every YouTube video and HBO show (all I wanted to do was rewatch The Leftovers), let Victor Wembanyama be your antidote. At the Spurs’ practice on Thursday, San Antonio Express-News columnist Mike Finger asked Wembanyama if he would ever partner with a sports betting firm. It couldn’t have been easier for the 22-year-old to say yes. The NBA displays ads for both FanDuel and DraftKings, in addition to hawking betting odds on its broadcasts. Until the streaming service met its end a few months ago, plenty of NBA games streamed exclusively on FanDuel Sports Network. Then there are Wembanyama’s legendary peers: James is the new face of Polymarket; Kevin Durant reads FanDuel odds and invests in Kalshi; Giannis Antetokounmpo is a Kalshi shareholder.

“Absolutely not,” Wembanyama said instead. “I will never do that. Honestly, I think it’s very sad to see some players promote it. Everybody does whatever they want, but without me.”

The founder of The Ringer and Grantland was famous for discovering and developing writers. Now he is promoting a technology eroding the creative industries

Bill Simmons may have stopped writing with any regularity in the mid-2010s – he claims his fingers don’t work – but that won’t stop him from reminding you of his greatest hits. On a recent podcast about Russell Westbrook’s retirement, he couldn’t stop quoting his old columns. He first referenced an article from the 2012 NBA finals, and wasn’t finished until 11 minutes into the podcast. His guest, The Ringer contributor Kirk Goldsberry, deserved an award for patience. But the biggest blight on the episode came later, in the form of a bizarre ad read.

“This episode,” Simmons announced, “is brought to you by ChatGPT, the Bill Simmons Podcast AI sponsor.” (Emphasis mine; his overenthusiastic delivery mandates the italics.) Simmons said that he had asked ChatGPT what Westbrook’s defining game was. “That was a pretty good answer,” he said of ChatGPT’s offerings, as if it were a precocious, loveable nephew, before encouraging his listeners to try the platform.

The Slovenian is one of the best players on the planet. But factors largely beyond his control have started to turn his career into a slog

Luka Dončić must feel as though, these past few months, he’s been twirling in a washing machine. He announced a separation from his fiancee in March; reports followed of a prolonged custody battle over their two daughters. As Dončić plays in the NBA and his children live in Slovenia, he doesn’t see them much as is. But after the reports of the rift with his ex emerged, he started playing some of the best basketball of his life: he led the Los Angeles Lakers to a 15-2 record in March, a stretch that included a torrential 60-point display against the Miami Heat. Behind Dončić’s brightening star, the Lakers seemed to be sharpening into a real contender. Then Dončić tweaked his hamstring in April and the illusion shattered. He watched from the sidelines as the Lakers limped out of the playoffs with an inevitable second-round defeat to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Actually, Dončić must feel as if he’s been in turmoil for the past few years. He made his first – and so far only – NBA finals in 2024, leading the Dallas Mavericks there with a barrage of awesome shotmaking. As the best offensive player on the court while playing through multiple injuries, Dončić and his Mavs lost to the far deeper Boston Celtics in five games. As thanks, the Mavericks traded Dončić to the Lakers, citing defensive concerns, when what had really doomed them against the Celtics was that no one aside from Luka – who led his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals in that series – could play at the requisite level to win.

Philadelphia wasn’t the obvious destination for LeBron James. That may be exactly why it makes perfect sense for a player who has always prioritized fit over sentiment

Should we have seen this coming all along? LeBron James knew that joining the Golden State Warriors would have been a losing gamble on the health of players five times closer to the ends of their careers than the beginnings. He knew the Cleveland Cavaliers, however strong their analytics, hopelessly lacked the unquantifiable greatness of a championship team. He knew the Giannis Antetokounmpo-led Miami Heat were too unproven to hitch his wagon to.

Of course he knew.

Will New York end their long wait for a title? Our contributors pick the winner, key players and dark horses before the season’s grand finale tips off

Where to even begin? Victor Wembanyama, the brightest young star in the NBA, appears on the biggest stage imaginable (in this galaxy, at least ... I’m not sure how big the stages are where he comes from), while one of the most storied franchises in American sports has its return to relevance cemented. And, maybe most importantly of all, The Garden, baby! CDL

The reigning champions were beaten in an epic series by the San Antonio Spurs. There’s no reason to believe they won’t challenge for years to come though

Throughout the Western Conference finals, the San Antonio Spurs hoped that Victor Wembanyama could work enough magic while he was on the court to make up for the Oklahoma City Thunder annihilating them while he was off of it. Late in Game 7 on Saturday night, the Thunder must have been licking their chops. Wembanyama picked up his fifth foul early in the fourth quarter. The Spurs led by six at the next break in play, a lead that could disappear in minutes with Wembanyama’s backup, Luke Kornet, on the floor. But there was no choice – Wembanyama checked out rather than risk fouling out.

Immediately, Thunder center Isaiah Hartenstein picked off a pass and bolted down the floor to lay the ball in. That would have cut the Spurs’ lead to four, but more importantly may well have set into motion a trend we had seen throughout the series: When Wembanyama sits, the Thunder feast.

The Spurs are up against the best team in the NBA in the Western Conference finals. But their star player has enough sorcery to give them confidence

Victor Wembanyama called for the ball. His San Antonio Spurs were up by nine at the tail end of the second quarter, but had led by as many as 16 in the first half. Down 2-1 in the Western Conference Finals to the Oklahoma City Thunder, building the lead in the final seconds of the half felt urgent – in the previous game, the Spurs had exploded into a 15-0 lead, only to lose heavily. In Game 4 on Sunday night, the klaxon was closing in, and so might the Thunder. Wembanyama got in a couple dribbles, but only had time to reach half-court before the clock forced him to shoot. He hoisted the ball into the air from 43ft; the buzzer sounded. The ball slammed cleanly into the basket.

Buoyed up by that shot and the Thunder clanking almost all their three-point attempts off the rim as if in solidarity with one another, the Spurs completed a 21-point annihilation to tie the series.

The Lakers star would have been expecting to play a supporting role as he burrows into his 40s. But injuries means he has assumed a familiar role

LeBron James must be so sick of this. If he wanted to experience being the best player on an otherwise thin team, he could simply remember the Cleveland Cavaliers’ run to the NBA finals in 2007. Or the 2015 NBA finals when his best teammates, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, suffered injuries. Or the 2018 season, which convinced SNL to make a spoof of James’ support staff. “I’m 53 years old,” one of LeBron’s “teammates” says in the clip. “I have seven kids, and two of them are also on the Cavs.” It’s 2026, James is a Los Angeles Laker, his two best teammates are hurt, and one of his kids actually is on the team.

How on earth did we get here, again? James is 41. The story of his season was his labored yet successful pivot into the Lakers’ third option, behind Luka Dončić (who was having one of the best stretches of his career before tweaking his hamstring in a humiliating loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder) and Austin Reaves (who strained his oblique in the same game). Both men are in their primes. James, on the other hand, has been plagued with what some observers may call old guy injuries: he missed the start of the season due to sciatica; he’s sat out a couple games since thanks to arthritis in his left foot. So how – how – is it that Dončić and Reaves were the ones felled by injuries and James is the iron man? Aren’t the rules that athletes in their 20s get to enjoy energy and health, while those in their 40s have to retire and become mediocre pundits?

The relatable, endearing authenticity of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the defending NBA champions is a wonder to behold

Winter is over, though perhaps most NBA fans feel as if it’s just beginning. After a midseason slump, the Oklahoma City Thunder have won 12 of their last 13 games They’re clinging to a slim but steady three-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs atop the otherwise chaotic Western Conference. (The Lakers are good now? The Nuggets can’t find their footing? The Rockets can’t even stand up?) The Thunder’s flirtation with vulnerability was fun, but the defending champions look as invincible now as they did during their 24-1 run to begin the season. So, now as then, with nothing to criticize in the Thunder’s basketball, we are compelled to discuss their character and vibes.

Reviews are usually poor. I myself celebrated the Spurs when they recorded a hat-trick of wins over the Thunder in December, simply for injecting intrigue into a season that already seemed decided. The Defector podcast Nothing But Respect recently featured a series of anti-Thunder guests; after discussing the idea that artists don’t like OKC with musician Will Anderson, a host announced, “next week, we will have a real, actual Thunder expert to defend his team’s values”. Most of the comments on that episode seemed unconvinced by Ringer staff writer Tyler Parker’s arguments.

The future Hall of Famer’s behavior over the years has been rash and erratic. But it’s understandable given the scrutiny he finds himself under

They’re calling the posts the “KD Files”. There’s no definitive proof that Kevin Durant is the man behind the X account @gethigher77 (display name: getoffmydickerson), but if he isn’t, somebody has done a phenomenal impersonation. In various screenshots splashed across the internet, getoffmydickerson took shots at Durant’s teammates, as the player himself has done before. There was also creative and amusing trash talk, something Durant has shown a talent for. Some of it crossed the line: the account made a reprehensible joke about supplying drones (Durant invests in the company Skydio, which has provided the Israel Defense Forces with weapons) and called Durant’s teammate Jabari Smith Jr “retarded”. When asked about @gethigher77, Durant said, “I’m not here to get into Twitter nonsense” – far from a denial that he was behind it, and in the eyes of many, confirmation that he was. We’ve got people writing in-depth proofs that the account is real.

Not that getoffmydickerson is Durant’s only problem. Shortly after the tweets blew up, Boardroom, which defines itself as a “sports, media, and entertainment brand” co-founded by Durant and his agent Rich Kleiman, laid off three of its staff writers, rationalizing the move as part of a pivot to video. (An aside: what’s the point of having career earnings of half a billion dollars if you’re not willing to invest some of it to protect your media company from financial headwinds?)

The Bucks star has become a shareholder in one of the world’s largest prediction markets. It only ushers the NBA further into the fetid swamp of sports betting

Couldn’t he have just started a podcast? “The Internet is full of opinions. I decided it was time to make some of my own,” Giannis Antetokounmpo, one of the four best basketball players in the world, posted in a statement announcing that he was joining the prediction market Kalshi as a shareholder. “We all on Kalshi now.”

We are not, but doesn’t the tone sum it up? The universe’s ineffable forces have clearly decided that the ubiquity of sports betting companies is insufficient. There must be new companies, with which you can bet on any outcome – Kalshi competitor Polymarket has hosted markets tied to geopolitical outcomes, including scenarios related to Israel and Gaza, for instance – that incentivize people to treat life’s most important avenues as trivially as a sports game. Kalshi and Polymarket are prediction platforms rather than traditional betting companies. Users effectively bet (or “trade”) against others on the platform about the outcome of events, from familiar wagers such as the result of a sporting event, to the obscure, such as the color of a politician’s suit at an election appearance. Kalshi has enjoyed plenty of freedom under the second Donald Trump administration, and Donald Trump Jr is a “strategic advisor” for them and Polymarket. A Kalshi outcome taking bets until recently was “Giannis Antetokounmpo’s next team?” as rumors swirled that the two-time NBA MVP was about to leave the Milwaukee Bucks. Antetokounmpo will be involved in marketing and publicity for Kalshi, and is forbidden from trading on markets related to the NBA. The move is also in step with the NBA’s rules – players are allowed to endorse betting companies as long as they don’t gamble on the league itself. But that hasn’t prevented scores of fans across Instagram and Reddit, and media members on Twitter, from expressing their displeasure at the move and insisting there is a conflict of interest.