It’s been a while since Yaxel Lendeborg announced his commitment to the Michigan basketball program, but Wolverines fans never got their hopes up too high. Lendeborg committed, but there was a chance that he never actually played at Michigan. He was testing the NBA Draft process, and last week, Lendeborg announced that he will play for the Wolverines.
Yaxel Lendeborg was the best player in the college basketball transfer portal, and Michigan basketball head coach Dusty May knows that he is a total game-changer.
“We also felt like this was a year that we could gamble on someone who we thought was the most productive, best player in the portal,” Dusty May said during an episode of the Defend The Block podcast. “What I mean is some years you can't wait this long. In this case, we felt like we had the roster depth, the positional size across the board where we could roll the dice and go the duration with someone like Yax. Fortunately, it paid off because he raises our ceiling exponentially.”
If Lendeborg did decide to go pro, Michigan would’ve still been in good shape heading into next season. However, the Wolverines are now looking like a legitimate national title contender with Lendeborg joining the team.
Article Continues Below“Obviously, everyone we sign each year, especially older players, is going to have an impact on everyone else,” May continued. “As a program that's striving to be championship level, we have to be much more concerned with maximizing our minutes and playing at an optimal performance level versus counting how many minutes we're playing. We're all going to have to sacrifice, but hopefully we're sacrificing to win championships.”
Michigan had a big offseason in the transfer portal last year, and it paid dividends. One of the best additions was Danny Wolf, who is now going to the NBA. However, May sees some Wolf in Lendeborg.
“They're very similar in that they're both big players who are skilled,” he said. “They're different in how they approach things, but the one thing about Yax: We think he'll be able to unlock some playmaking ability here.”
This past season was a big one for the Michigan basketball team as Dusty May led the program to a Big Ten Tournament title and Sweet 16 appearance. With Yaxel Lendeborg coming aboard, the sky is the limit next season.
