Gritty, joyful identity Warriors creating has them built to last highs and lows

Warriors Analysis Gritty, joyful identity Warriors creating has them built to last highs and lows The identity the Golden State Warriors are forming should be able to survive the highs and lows of the 2026-27 NBA season. By Dalton Johnson • Published 3 hours ago • Updated 3 hours ago SAN FRANCISCO – For once, Yaxel Lendeborg seemed to be at a loss for words. The Warriors rookie has entertained with his play and his words in the first three weeks of his NBA career. On the court, in the locker room and at the podium, Lendeborg has given answers that have gone viral and have shown what a quick learner he is. This time, he needed a moment to ponder the point he wanted to make. Watch NBC Bay Area News free wherever you are WATCH HERE Lendeborg squinted his eyes and blew air into the microphone. “Hmmm … that’s a good one,” he began. My question was about identity. Who are the 2026-27 Warriors at their core beyond the standings? What describes their collective personality? “Ummm … damn,” Lendeborg continued. In those eight seconds of contemplation, Lendeborg found his answer. “I would say, I mean, I feel like we're pretty gritty,” Lendeborg said. “Honestly, I feel like we don't take none of that fake tough guy stuff that everybody tries to throw at us. We feel like we're willing to get in your face, willing to play as hard as we can, just do whatever we have to do to win, regardless of what kind of game it's going to be.” Golden State Warriors Golden State Warriors 17 hours ago Draymond Green says potential Jordan Poole-Warriors reunion a ‘non-issue' Yaxel Lendeborg 20 hours ago Yaxel Lendeborg hilariously states how he will honor ‘glorious king' Steph Curry The Warriors didn’t need to be gritty to beat the New Orleans Pelicans for their eighth straight win Monday night to cap an undefeated six-game homestand. They led by 15 points after the first quarter, 29 points at halftime, 47 through three quarters and won by 51 points for the largest margin of victory ever in Steve Kerr’s 13 years coaching the Warriors. But establishing an identity isn’t about the score. It’s about never changing who you are as a whole despite the score, which is why Lendeborg came to his teammate’s aid and received a technical foul early in the fourth quarter against the Pelicans after Derik Queen pushed Graham Ike near his face. Being ahead by 47 wasn’t the point. For all 48 minutes, these Warriors want to be the ones to set the ground rules on Won’t Be Punk’d 101. Yaxel Lendeborg and Derik Queen both earned technical fouls after this scuffle pic.twitter.com/KzXKpLMdss — Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) November 10, 2026 A few weeks isn’t enough for Warriors coach Steve Kerr. He sets his first sights on the 20-game mark before having an idea of how high his team can climb. Kerr made that clear in his pregame press conference Monday night, yet after plucking the Pelicans apart he was asked again about the potential he sees in his team. “The Orlando game the other night, the process was bad,” Kerr said. “And tonight, it was excellent. … Our process was really strong tonight. But we’ve got to do that consistently. And if we do that, you can ask me again after nine more games or so.” That right there is another key part of the Warriors’ identity they have been building. The outside had no expectations for then. If anything, they were written off before the season even began. And that’s fine by them. Maybe internally they had their own expectations, but not externally. There wasn’t any talk about needing to be a top-six team in the Western Conference, or even top eight. The Warriors have let their play do the talking, and it starts with their own version of trusting the process. “Listen, we come in and we do what we're supposed to do. Like, whether it's the training staff, lifting, practice, but yes, you hit the nail on the head: Process oriented, where these are the things that we're trying to accomplish today, and we're only focusing on today,” Georges Niang said after the Warriors beat the Miami Heat by 20 points last Thursday. “And tomorrow we'll try and accomplish these next few things that we're never looking ahead. We may look back at what happened the game before or practice, and I think that's what makes it easy because you're just like, OK, I'm going to show up and and do my job each day, and I think every day that all of us show up, we're all getting better, and the proof is in the pudding. We still have a lot of work to do, but the proof is in the pudding.” Niang scored 13 points to lead the Warriors’ rejuvenated Strength In Numbers bench unit in that win against the Heat, and continued to stoke his fiery side by chest bumping Bobby Portis and jawing at one the league’s notorious tough guys. Players like Niang make Draymond Green believe the Warriors have the right amount of “collective nastiness.” There’s a high level of connectedness that has allowed the Warriors to accept roles after a slow start and having its back against the wall since Day 1 while continuing to be wrought with injury issues. Traditional stats, like the Warriors ranking second in points per game (120.4) and second in assists per game (29.0), plus first in made threes per game (16.5), fourth in overall field goal percentage (47.7) and eighth in steals per game (8.9) don’t paint the full picture. Neither do the Warriors ranking second in offensive rating (119.0) and 11th in defensive rating (110.3) for the fifth-best net rating (8.7) in the league. Ranking first in charges drawn per game (1.09) and second in total loose balls recovered (25) get you closer to what’s really going on. When the Warriors dropped to 0-3, Kerr delivered a calmingly confident speech that had them feeling closer to 3-0. When Curry saved them against the Magic with his 41 points in an overtime win, including the final 12 points of regulation, the first words he told the Warriors in the locker room were about how much he trusts them and applauded the depth of a team that entered the season down three of its best players. The main thing has remained the main thing. No looking back, no looking forward for a present group putting its focus on the process over the results. “We're not getting ahead of ourselves,” Curry says. “Nobody in there is thinking that we're something that we're not. We're just putting together game after game, which for a team that's fairly new with each other and some young guys who have a lot of responsibility, that's the only way you can manage 82 games is separating the forward thinking of where this is going to take us from just the process of how do we win tonight. It's a hard commitment because it's a lot of work and a lot of discipline, but it's the only way to be successful here.” Forming conclusions after 11 games would be fool’s gold. If they were after three, the Warriors still would be drowning in the gutters instead of riding waves and collecting wins in the sand. An 82-game season isn’t a 40-yard dash but an ultra-marathon of highs and lows. The sooner a team can establish who they are in their soul, though, the more they can control the controllables and let the rest take care of itself. Joy remains a top priority of the culture they’ve created, and equal parts of grittiness has the Warriors feeling up to the task of surviving, and even thriving, a taxing five-game test on the road that begins Wednesday night against the 8-3 Houston Rockets and continues against the only team hotter than them in the 9-2 San Antonio Spurs. Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast This article tagged under: Warriors Analysis