Mavericks' decision to pass on Yaxel Lendeborg keeps looking worse

The Dallas Mavericks' decision to draft Morez Johnson Jr. with the No. 9 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft this summer drew immediate backlash. While Johnson's versatility, defense, energy, and physicality were all intriguing parts of his game during his sophomore season as a Michigan Wolverine, many Mavs fans felt that taking him ninth was a reach.

Morez Johnson Jr. is starting slow for Dallas

Six games into his NBA career, these fans may have been right. Rez is averaging 6.3 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.3 assists, and 1.5 turnovers per game while shooting 53.3 percent from the field. He is also picking up 3.2 fouls per game despite playing just 15.5 minutes per game. This amounts to a whopping 7.4 fouls per 36 minutes.

Many of these foul calls have come while he's setting screens, and his high foul counts date back to Summer League for Dallas. These fouls often come in bunches, and his constant fouling has limited his ability to contribute and stay on the court.

He's still making winning plays, boxes out hard, and has a nice turnaround shot from around the basket, but Rez can't stay on the court if he's fouling this much.

There have certainly been signs that he'll be a good long-term player for Dallas, but his former Michigan teammate, Yaxel Lendeborg, looks like a future star after only playing seven games.

Yaxel Lendeborg is already looking like a star

Lendeborg was drafted with the 11th overall pick, two picks after Johnson, and the Mavericks' decision to take Johnson over Lendeborg is certainly looking questionable after seeing how well Yaxel is playing. Johnson has plenty of time to develop, and it's not time for Mavs fans to panic just yet, but Lendeborg looks even more NBA-ready than expected.

He's averaging 22.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 0.9 steals per game while shooting 52 percent from the field and 40.9 percent from beyond the arc. Lendeborg had his biggest performance of the season on November 1 against the LA Clippers, as he finished with 37 points, four rebounds, and six assists while shooting 13-of-19 from the field and 6-of-11 from downtown.

Yax was electric from 3-point range in this game, knocking down tough threes off the bounce and the catch, using his size to overpower defenders in the paint and shoot over them, and displaying potential as a secondary shot creator due to his self-creation and underrated playmaking.

He looked extremely comfortable with the ball in his hands, and it's impossible not to imagine how he'd look alongside Cooper Flagg and Kyrie Irving — especially since he showed interest in Dallas picking him before the draft. The Mavericks still need a third guy to step up alongside their star duo, and Lendeborg easily could've done that. He has now scored 25+ points in four of the last five games, and the Warriors have won four games in a row.

Dusty May makes this conversation even more intriguing

Yaxel has been an integral piece of their success as of late, and through a week and a half of the season, Dallas' decision to pass on him is looking rough.

A big reason that taking Lendeborg over Johnson has been a major talking point among Mavs fans is because the team's first-year head coach, Dusty May, coached both players at Michigan last season. The chance that Dallas was going to take a Michigan player with their lottery pick seemed especially likely after the team hired May, and while Lendeborg wasn't a popular player among MFFLs at the time of the draft, he is now.

The Mavericks' hot start shows why Lendeborg would've made sense

Many Mavs fans are dissapointed that the team passed on Lendeborg, and while the age argument is there considering he's a 24-year-old rookie, his on-court production can't be undermined. He looks much more prepared to help a team win right now compared to Johnson, and with Dallas starting 4-2 and winning four of their last five games, they look much more like a win-now team than initially expected.

Johnson is only 20 years old and projects to be a stronger fit alongside Flagg than Lendeborg due to some of Flagg and Lendeborg's overlapping offensive capabilities, but Lendeborg is playing like a long-term starter and looks like someone who could've helped the Mavs win right now.

Time will tell whether Dallas made the right choice and erase the recency bias that is flooding Mavs Twitter right now, and there are definitely more layers to this argument, but the Mavs' choice to take Morez Johnson Jr. over Yaxel Lendeborg is only poised to intensify if Lendeborg keeps dominating while Johnson struggles.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow