Yaxel Lendeborg Gets a Bay Area Education Over BBQ on NBAT2's 'Rookie Dinner'
Grant Mona
Host · Writer
Every NBA rookie learns about the rookie dinner sooner or later, usually when the veterans order half the menu and slide the check across the table at the end of the night. NBA Take-Two Media (NBAT2) and 4.4.Forty Media built a new original series around that tradition, and Rookie Dinner skips the inflated bill in favor of an actual conversation between players from different generations.
Each episode puts an NBA rookie at a table in his new city with an established veteran and a local legend, and the meal turns into a crash course on the city he now plays for. NBAT2 started in the Bay Area, and it's hard to think of a better rookie to open with than the one the Warriors have leaned on through the first three weeks of the season.
Golden State forward Yaxel Lendeborg sits down at Everett & Jones, the longtime Berkeley barbecue spot, with Denver Nuggets forward Aaron Gordon, 14-year NBA veteran Drew Gooden and Oakland rapper Mistah F.A.B. Gordon grew up in San Jose and Gooden is from Oakland, and NBAT2 says both were home to have their Oakland Soldiers jerseys retired when the episode was filmed.
Lendeborg's start
Lendeborg took a longer route to the NBA than most lottery picks, starting at the junior college level, then playing two seasons at UAB and a final college year at Michigan before the Warriors took him 11th overall in June. He won Summer League MVP in Las Vegas after averaging 14.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists for a Golden State team that won the title.
The regular season has gone even better than the summer did. Through his first 10 games, Lendeborg is averaging 21.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 4.0 assists, and with Jimmy Butler out until the new year with a knee injury, he has become the second scoring option next to Stephen Curry. The Clippers learned that the hard way on Nov. 1, when Lendeborg scored a career-high 37 points in a 124-112 Warriors win in a game Golden State played without Curry or Draymond Green.
Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images
Nov 1, 2026; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors forward Yaxel Lendeborg (1) gestures after making a three-point basket against the LA Clippers during the fourth quarter at Chase Center.
The advice
The best parts of the episode come when the veterans talk about the things nobody warns young players about. Gordon was honest about how NBA money pushes young players toward materialism, where people pay attention to what car a player drives and who he's seen with, and fitting in can feel more important than it should. "As you get older, you start to understand," Gordon said, adding that these days he's fine walking around in sweats and slippers. He told Lendeborg the people closest to him are more important than any of that, and he pointed to getting his family out of debt as the thing he's proudest of.
Gordon also told him to be patient in a league full of elite players and to give back to people around him, because it comes back around. The group talked about keeping work away from home life, whether that means meditating, reading or taking a drive out to Half Moon Bay.
The episode has plenty of laughs too, with Lendeborg hearing how rookies used to get hazed, swapping AAU stories with the veterans and getting a lesson on the Bay Area slang "bip'd" and "bap'd," which Mistah F.A.B. confirms when he joins the table.
F.A.B. steered the conversation toward community and what it means to represent the Bay. His advice for a young player who wants to make a real difference in Oakland was "Just be authentic. Don't even come in with the cameras." Then he got Too $hort on the phone for a little more guidance.
Why Lendeborg fits the show
I think the veterans were drawn to Lendeborg's background more than his box scores. He talked about his mother's fight with cancer and how it pushes him to raise money and awareness for cancer research, and Gordon, Gooden and F.A.B. all kept coming back to the fact that he held real jobs before basketball paid his bills. All three said that perspective is a big reason they expect him to last. He recently bought his mom a new home, which he has called a lifelong goal.
The concept works because the people at the table actually have something to teach him. Lendeborg is a 24-year-old rookie who took the long way to the league, and he's sitting across from a champion and a 14-year veteran who already made the mistakes he's about to be tempted by, with a local voice keeping the whole thing tied to the city.
NBAT2 says future episodes will visit other NBA cities, and as someone who covers the Clippers every night, I'd love to see them bring the format to Los Angeles, where there's no shortage of veterans and local legends who could fill those seats.
The debut episode of Rookie Dinner is streaming now on NBAT2's YouTube channel.
