Like many other players, including his own Golden State Warriors teammates Steph Curry and Draymond Green, Yaxel Lendeborg made his pitch to LeBron James, the hottest free agent on the market, to try and sell him on the idea of coming to the Bay to ride out the final seasons of his career.

Unlike Curry and Green, who have years of history and personal relationships with James to pull on in order to bring him aboard, Lendeborg doesn't know James and hasn't played a minute of regular season NBA basketball yet. 

So the threat that Lendeborg pulled on was trying to sell himself, at least the prospect of playing with him, to James. Lendeborg being one to speak his mind unfiltered, he added a caveat, that being that James may not be known to like playing with rookies, but that Lendeborg is "not the average rookie," and that he'd love to play under James. 

It's a noble effort, but it's not one that seemed to go over well with Green. Lendeborg and Green have already exchanged a few verbal jabs back and forth, though playfully, but the criticism that Green let loose of his teammate on his podcast The Draymond Green Show seemed to be more pointed. 

“Is the pitch too weak or too strong? I don’t know. I think the pitch is pointless," Green said (via NBA Courtside). "But it’s fine. Training camp is coming soon enough and you know, got to rein the rookie in a little bit, teach him a few things... I think you all know why I’m hitting at training camp. And yeah, it’ll get here soon enough, Yax. Enjoy all your media.”

The broader point of Green's point seemed to be that he was unhappy that the rookie felt bold enough to try and appeal to James, let bring up a veiled criticism of him by mentioning that he supposedly doesn't like playing with rookies. 

Lendeborg has always been one to speak his mind and has been doing a lot of that since he was drafted and unlike a lot of players, he hasn't seemed to back down to Green at all, even going after the Warriors forward with some light ribbing on social media. 

Green overall has played along, but there's a very real truth in the statement he made on his podcast, that being that he's looking forward to training most of all because it will give him a chance to humble Lendeborg in person.