LAS VEGAS -- Yaxel Lendeborg won his second ring in four months Sunday, leading the Golden State Warriors past the Memphis Grizzlies 94-90 in the NBA summer league championship game at UNLV's Thomas & Mack Center.
Lendeborg, who starred for the University of Michigan's NCAA title team last season, finished with 21 points and 10 rebounds to outduel Cameron Boozer in an intense showdown of 2026 lottery picks. He became just the second player to win a Division I NCAA championship and a Vegas summer league title in the same year, joining Davion Mitchell.
"Coming into this program, I just wanted to prove that I'm a winner," said Lendeborg, the 11th pick in last month's draft. "Doing stuff like this -- not caring about the stats and just caring about the outcome. I'm going to continue to push that into next season with the bigger Warriors. ... At Michigan, we played team ball. Here, we play team ball. That's what wins games and championships."
The Warriors (5-1) captured their second summer league championship, joining the Sacramento Kings and Portland Trail Blazers as the only teams to win the event multiple times since its inception in 2013. Golden State emerged triumphant in a back-and-forth contest in which the score was tied at halftime.
Boozer, the No. 3 pick out of Duke, led the Grizzlies with 19 points, eight rebounds and four assists. He hit a 3-pointer at the end of the third quarter to give Memphis its first double-digit lead. But Lendeborg countered in crunch time, scoring three buckets in quick succession to lead the Warriors' fourth-quarter comeback.
Warriors guard Deivon Smith scored 21 points off the bench, joining Lendeborg and guard LJ Cryer among five Golden State players to finish in double figures.
The Grizzlies had multiple chances in the final minute to win or force overtime, but Boozer missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer and Olivier-Maxence Prosper threw away an inbounds pass.
"Their butts got tight," Lendeborg said. "They puckered up. Some of us are built for the moment and some aren't. ... Our spirit, our will, our desire to not lose is pretty much what helped us out."
Despite the title game loss, Boozer led the Grizzlies to a 4-2 record during an impressive summer league run. The 19-year-old forward is in position to be the face of a Grizzlies' youth movement after the franchise traded All-Stars Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson Jr. in separate deals.
"I've got to find a way to assert myself more," Boozer said. "At the end, I got two great looks, but they didn't fall. ... We lost, but this is why I love the game. It was high-intensity and back-and-forth."
Golden State's victory provided a dose of revenge for Lendeborg, whose Wolverines lost a high-profile matchup against Boozer's Blue Devils in February.
"I think about [revenge] every time I play [Boozer]," Lendeborg said. "Every game we play, them refs be saving him. ... It is a competitive nature [with] everybody that gets drafted ahead of me."
While the Warriors utilized the 6-foot-9 Lendeborg as a do-everything forward and go-to scorer in summer league, he is expected to serve as a complementary player for veteran stars Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler III.
Warriors summer league coach Khalid Robinson said Lendeborg's versatility and motor make him ideally suited to that role.
"[He fits because of] his skill set, his physical profile, his size for his position and his competitive spirit," Robinson said. "You saw it tonight: We were in a hole, and that competitive spirit kicked in. Yaxel said, 'Let's get to it.'"