The story of the Golden State Warriors' preseason was Yaxel Lendeborg.

The No. 11 pick of the 2026 draft was one of the most impressive rookies in the league.

He is the first winner of this preseason edition of Warriors winners and losers.

Note that I avoid having players suffering from illnesses/injuries being associated with the word "loser."

Winner: Yaxel Lendeborg

Light Years podcast host Sam Esfandiari posted a screenshot of the preseason per-36 stats of this year's rookie class:

2026 Rookies Preseason Per-36 stats pic.twitter.com/VpliQ084Rx

— Sam Esfandiari (@samesfandiari) October 17, 2026

No rookie had Lendeborg's combination of scoring volume, scoring efficiency, rebounding and passing.

The biggest surprise for me is how well Lendeborg performed as the ball-handler in ball-screen situations.

I highlighted seven plays from the preseason finale here that showed how advanced he looks.

Keep in mind that Lendeborg played sparingly on the perimeter until his final college season.

Ball-handling and shooting weren't supposed to immediately be big strengths for him, but in the preseason he showed that they are—though carrying over that success into the regular season will be a challenge.

Lendeborg has to work on his on-ball defense, as I briefly highlighted here. But all things considered, it's obvious he's the Warriors' biggest winner of preseason.

Loser: Front Office's Center Plan

Before I criticize the front office, I want to acknowledge that I understood their offseason center plan.

The Warriors had essentially no way of signing outside free agents who cost more than the veteran minimum. But they did have Bird rights for Kristaps Porzingis and the ability to match an offer sheet for restricted free agent Quinten Post, and the Dubs had enough space under the second apron to keep one of them.

They chose Porzingis.

The obvious pro of keeping Porzingis is he's a better player than Post and anyone they could have considered for a veteran minimum. The other pro is they can use his $20 million (essentially expiring) salary to make a midseason trade.

The con is he has serious availability issues for a team that already has two major rotation players out for months.

Now, Porzingis is out indefinitely with a health issue.

The Warriors gave Charles Bassey a partially guaranteed veteran minimum contract, which made sense considering he was the best center available at that price.

But once again, the con was that he had a history of injuries.

He's currently day-to-day with knee tendinitis.

The season hasn't even started, and the Warriors might be down to Al Horford as their only healthy center on a standard contract.

Draymond Green will play small-ball 5 while Porzingis is out, which should lead to some impactful lineups.

But that doesn't take away from the fact that the Warriors are thinner at center than any team should be for their regular-season opener.

Winner: Draymond Green

It's been a strange year for Green. He said he thought the Warriors were trading him for Giannis Antetokounmpo at last year's trade deadline.

Then in the offseason, he declined his player option to give the Warriors flexibility to pursue LeBron James. Once James signed with the 76ers, Green took a one-year deal worth the money he declined.

It felt like a telling contract decision. The Warriors could have given him a multiyear deal at a smaller average annual value, but they seemed to be saying that they preferred the option of cutting ties with Green in the offseason.

Steve Kerr has said numerous times this offseason that the Warriors have to turn the ball over less, and he also recently said that Green and Stephen Curry won't get the same leniency for their turnovers as they've had in the past.

If Green is being negatively impacted by any of these headlines over the last year, you wouldn't know it from his on-court performance.

In the preseason, Green led the team in assists, assist-to-turnover ratio and plus/minus. He tied for the team lead in steals per game. He rarely shot the ball, but when he did he connected on 66.7 percent of his field-goal attempts and 50.0 percent of his threes.

The Warriors looked lost without him for the first 27 minutes of their game against the Lakers in Las Vegas.

Expect him to play heavy minutes early in the season.

Loser: Bench Shooting

The Warriors shot 35.9 percent from three in the preseason, which is almost identical to what they shot during last year's regular season (35.6).

But if you look at just bench players who made the team, their three-point percentage was 29.1 percent:

If you take out Will Richard's shooting, the percentage drops to 25.3.

Of course some of these players thrived in other areas. Brandon Williams scored in the paint at will. De'Anthony Melton had a team-high-tying 2.0 steals per game.

But the bottom line is the Warriors need their bench to be more efficient offensively.