Golden State Warriors Grab Summer League Gold While the LeBron Watch Drags On

The Golden State Warriors won a championship this week. Yes, it's the July kind — but after a 37-45 season that ended in the play-in, nobody at Chase Center was in a position to be picky. Yaxel Lendeborg dropped 21 points and 10 rebounds on Memphis in Sunday's Las Vegas final, the Warriors erased a double-digit fourth-quarter deficit to win 94-90, and the No. 11 pick walked off with championship game MVP hardware and the franchise's first summer league title since 2013. It was the feel-good punctuation on a week in which the actual roster remained a half-finished sentence — because the biggest Golden State Warriors storyline of the summer is still LeBron James, and he still hasn't said yes to anyone.

Champs in Vegas, and it wasn't a fluke

The title-game comeback was the kind of finish that makes even cynics glance up from the buffet line. Down 10 entering the fourth at the Thomas & Mack Center, Golden State's kids clamped down, Lendeborg buried a late three, and Memphis coughed up the inbounds pass on its chance to force overtime. Cameron Boozer, the Grizzlies' No. 3 overall pick, finished with 19 points and eight rebounds and still went home without the trophy.

The run to get there had real teeth, too. In the semifinals the Warriors knocked out a previously unbeaten Lakers squad 92-88, holding L.A. without a field goal over the final 90 seconds, with LJ Cryer scoring 16 points on four threes, Graham Ike posting 16 and 11, and Chance McMillian going a spotless 4-for-4 from deep. Golden State shot it at a 44.8 percent clip in Vegas and hit 38.2 percent from three, second-best in the field — and even avenged an earlier 106-85 blowout loss to these same Grizzlies. Summer league trophies don't bank wins in November. They do suggest the front office finally drafted and stashed some actual depth.

Yaxel Lendeborg looks like the real thing

The headliner deserves his own paragraph. Lendeborg, taken 11th overall out of Michigan in June, closed his first Warriors summer with the 21-and-10 masterpiece in the final after a steady two weeks of rebounding, rim protection and grown-man physicality. For a franchise that has spent a decade waiting on young frontcourt help that never quite arrived, a ready-made forward who plays hard on both ends is close to a best-case draft outcome. Second-rounder Lajae Jones (No. 54, acquired via the pick from February's Trayce Jackson-Davis trade with Toronto) and returning two-way guard Cryer rounded out a Vegas rotation that looked coached, connected and occasionally mean — which is more than could be said for stretches of the big club's season. Don't be surprised if Ike and McMillian parlay their shooting displays into camp invites, either; teams that win in Vegas usually mine two or three real contributors out of the wreckage, and Golden State's bench needs every candidate it can get.

The offseason so far: Porzingis and Draymond stay, the wait continues

The grown-up moves were settled before the week began, but they frame everything happening now. Kristaps Porzingis — acquired at the February deadline from Atlanta for Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield — agreed to a two-year, $40 million deal with a second-year player option, negotiated before free agency even opened. In his 15 post-trade appearances he averaged 16.1 points in under 24 minutes a night, and the Warriors clearly believe a full camp version of that is worth the injury risk that comes bundled with it — the deal's modest structure means it neither blocks a star pursuit nor haunts the books if his body betrays him again.

Draymond Green, meanwhile, declined his $27.7 million player option in late June and then re-signed on a multi-year deal, a sequence designed to create cap flexibility for a star pursuit while keeping the franchise's defensive brain in-house. De'Anthony Melton also opted out, and the club added center Charles Bassey on July 9 after his 10-day stints last spring. General manager Mike Dunleavy was asked what the roster needs and answered, memorably, "everything." Hard to argue with a front office that's at least self-aware.

The LeBron watch drags on

Which brings us to the reason Warriors fans keep refreshing their phones. LeBron James told the Lakers on June 30 that he plans to play elsewhere next season, ending an eight-year Los Angeles run, and Golden State immediately surfaced in the reporting as a hopeful suitor — with the fever-dream version of the plan involving an Anthony Davis trade to form a new Big Four in the Bay. As of Monday, though, ESPN's Shams Charania reported there's "no timetable" for a decision, with Cleveland, Miami and Philadelphia in the mix and the Warriors characterized as a possibility rather than a favorite.

So the wait continues, and it's not cost-free: every day the roster's back half stays unfinished is a day Golden State can't fully commit its remaining flexibility elsewhere. A 41-year-old LeBron next to Steph Curry would be box-office in a way the league hasn't seen in years. It would also require cap gymnastics worthy of a Cirque residency, which is presumably why Dunleavy's phone has not left his hand all month. Until the answer comes, every other Warriors move is written in pencil.

Butler's rehab is the quiet subplot that matters most

Lost in the Vegas confetti: the Warriors' season really died on January 19, when Jimmy Butler tore his right ACL against Miami. He had surgery February 9, and his late-June update was genuinely encouraging — he's jumping and dunking off his left leg, was roughly six weeks from full-speed running, and declared, "I know I'm still going to be a top player whenever I get back." He also said he wants to retire a Warrior, which matters because he's entering the final season of his deal at $56.8 million and won't be extension-eligible until February 6, 2027, a year removed from surgery.

Add Moses Moody's torn patellar tendon and Curry's knee trouble — he still averaged 26.6 points at 37 despite missing a big chunk of the year — and you understand both why Steve Kerr churned through 43 starting lineups in a 10th-place season and why Golden State's win-now urgency borders on desperation. The play-in cameo (a 126-121 elimination of the Clippers before Phoenix ended things) was the first losing season of the Curry era since 2020.

What's next on the calendar

• Mid-August: full 2026-27 NBA schedule release expected
• Late September: media day and training camp open in San Francisco
• Late October: opening night, currently projected for around October 20
• Ongoing: LeBron's decision, whenever the man feels like it

The Golden State Warriors leave this week holding a trophy, a rookie who looks like he belongs, and a roster that is one seismic yes — or one quiet no — away from two completely different seasons. If LeBron lands in the Bay, the summer league title becomes a charming footnote to the wildest team-building swing of the decade. If he doesn't, then Lendeborg, a healthy Butler and a re-upped Porzingis are the actual plan, and Vegas just gave fans a reason to think that plan is less bleak than April suggested. Either way, October can't come fast enough.