Watch Warriors pick Yaxel Lendeborg share emotional draft night with his mom originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
When Yaxel Lendeborg heard his name called at the Barclays Center on Tuesday night, he did not celebrate the way most 23-year-olds might.
He broke down in tears and embraced his mother.
Look how much it means to Yaxel 💛
He's a Golden State Warrior 🙌 pic.twitter.com/kLuq1hkTkZ
— ESPN (@espn) June 24, 2026
“Every emotion possible,” Lendeborg told ESPN’s Lisa Salters immediately after the Warriors selected him No. 11 overall in the 2026 NBA Draft. “I don’t deserve to be here right now. I can’t believe it.”
For anyone who knows Lendeborg’s story, those words made complete sense.
His grades were so poor growing up that he was kept off his high school basketball team entirely — a low point that could have ended his basketball dreams before they ever began. Instead, his mother Yissel Raposo refused to let that happen. She pushed him back into the game, back into the classroom and back into believing he belonged.
“That kid got here because of her,” Lendeborg said of his mother. “She pushed a dream, forced me to go out there and step into the world and become a man. I had no choice but to go out there and do the best I could, so I vowed every day to be a better man and be a better person and do the best I can for her. Everything I do is for my mom.”
"She was saying we did it, all the sacrifices that we made, we finally accomplished it… she's proud of me."@Yaxel_Lendeborg on his emotional moment with his mother after he was drafted #11 overall to Golden State! pic.twitter.com/vc579lVndY
— NBA (@NBA) June 24, 2026
After going undrafted out of high school, Lendeborg spent years building his game at UAB before entering the transfer portal and joining Michigan for his final season of eligibility. He averaged 15.1 points and 6.8 rebounds for the Wolverines while leading them to the 2026 NCAA Championship, earning Big Ten Player of the Year honors and a spot on AP’s All-America First Team.
Through it all, his mother was by his side — even as she carried something she had chosen not to share. Raposo kept her own health concerns to herself while Lendeborg developed into a collegiate star, not wanting to distract him from his goals. In February 2026, Lendeborg revealed in an essay for The Players’ Tribune titled “How My Mom Saved My Life” that his mother had been diagnosed with Stage 4 appendix cancer.
On draft night, Raposo told her son what the moment meant to her.
“She was saying, ‘We did it, all the sacrifices that we made, we finally accomplished it — you did it,’” Lendeborg said. “She’s proud of me and she’s so excited.”
"She was saying we did it, all the sacrifices that we made, we finally accomplished it… she's proud of me."@Yaxel_Lendeborg on his emotional moment with his mother after he was drafted #11 overall to Golden State! pic.twitter.com/vc579lVndY
— NBA (@NBA) June 24, 2026
When Lendeborg was asked how special it was to share this moment with his mother while she battles her illness, his voice broke again.
“It means everything to me — it’s the least I could do for her,” he said. “She’s done so much for me. She’s put her whole life on hold for my life. I’m super proud of her for fighting so hard, and I’m glad we get to share this moment together.”
Raposo was a professional basketball player herself in the Dominican Republic, as was Lendeborg’s father, Okary Lendeborg. Basketball runs in his blood. But Tuesday night was not about bloodlines or scouting reports or fit with the Warriors’ system.
It was about a mother who saved her son’s life, and a son who made sure she was there to see what that life became.
