Aaron Johnson’s Impact Lives On Through Lendeborg’s Choice of No. 1
By Steve Irvine
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - July 1, 2026
Yaxel Lendeborg had a clearcut explanation on why he chose to wear No. 1 in his first NBA season with the Golden State Warriors. It’s all about a relationship.
“Aaron Johnson was my player development coach/mentor at UAB, and he’s been with me ever since then,” Lendeborg told a group of reporters after being the No. 11 selection in the NBA Draft last week. “He wore number one at UAB, so I’m doing it to honor him.”
Johnson, whose uniform number is also hanging in the rafters at Bartow Arena, said Lendeborg’s decision came as an appreciated surprise.
“I was with him at the draft, we were in the back taking pictures,” said the 37-year-old Johnson, who was the Conference USA Player of the Year in 2010-11. “I know a lot of people asked him ‘Why No. 1?” Something happened where he started talking about the jersey. I said ‘You’re doing what?’ He said ‘Yeah man, I’m going to do that for you.’ I was like ‘Wow.’ That’s my little guy, man. He’s a big guy but that’s my little guy, man.”
It’s not hard to find UAB fingerprints on Lendeborg’s rise to becoming a national champion at Michigan and a NBA lottery pick. Andy Kennedy and his staff had a huge role in helping him develop into the player that Lendeborg is today. Johnson, the career assist leader at UAB, was part of the process. Lendeborg joined the program in the summer of 2023, which was about the same time Johnson returned to his alma mater to serve as UAB’s Director of Player Development.
“In 2023, Yax told me he was just happy to be a Division I basketball player and in June of 2026, he was the 11th pick of the NBA Draft,” Johnson said. “Kids that are just happy to get a scholarship and say, ‘I'm a Division I basketball player’, they don't reach heights like that and it's not that they probably aren't good enough. They just feel like, ‘OK, I've reached the pinnacle of who I am.’ When he first got to UAB and I saw him, I said ‘You can make the NBA. You know, you're 6-9, you got long arms and big hands and you dribble, you pass, you rebound great. We can work on your shooting.”
Lendeborg made more progress as a player than any other stop in his relatively short basketball life. He moved on after a pair of record-setting seasons at UAB. After moving on, it was Johnson who led the process of getting ready Lendeborg ready for the next step, whether that be the NBA draft or striking NIL gold at another university.
“My team is this guy that got his jersey retired here somehow - Number one, Aaron Johnson,” Lendeborg said in an interview with The Banner soon after he announced he was leaving UAB. “That is pretty much my only circle. Him and, you know, the people he trusts as well. Right. So that's my circle. That's pretty much all the help I'm getting.”
Obviously, Lendeborg chose to put off his NBA quest for a season to join Dusty May’s Michigan program, where his dream season included Big Ten Player of the Year and All-American honors, a Big Ten regular season title and ultimately the national championship. Johnson also moved on, returning to his hometown to serve as a player development coach on former UAB teammate Tyler Marsh’s Chicago Sky’s coaching staff. He also continued to work with Lendeborg, both in person and through phone calls and texts.
“I mean, I was just a day-to-day person, I guess,” said Johnson. “Like, whenever he needed me, I was there for him. I don't want people to take it as if he couldn't operate without me. But Yax, during halftime of his games at Michigan, he would send me a message real quick. What am I doing? What are you seeing? Am I playing well? Am I not playing well? Like, he did it every game. I was just someone that he trusted. He thought I had a good ear, he thought I had a good eye with basketball. He thought the things that I said were helpful to him.”
Johnson was in the stands for many of Michigan’s bigger moments, including during Final Four victories over Arizona and UConn. He was on the floor, alongside Lendeborg’s family, in the celebration after the national championship win over UConn.
“Like, I'm not an emotional person, but when they were being Arizona by 30, I started crying,” Johnson said. “Because a lot of people said that Yax not going to the NBA was a terrible decision. They said it was going to be one of the worst decisions he ever made. But he went back to school and won a national championship.”
Now Lendeborg is in Northern California beginning life in the NBA. Johnson said the the agency Lendeborg’s signed with has asked him to continue his work with Yaxel.
“Coaching is to me who I am and basketball has given me everything I was able to get,” said Johnson, who lives in Chicago with his wife Fatima, a former UAB women’s basketball player, and their three children. “So I love coaching, but Yax leans on me a lot, man, for a lot of different reasons. I truly don't know. Like, I want to be a coach. I want to be a head coach. But Yax and his agency have asked me, would I be interested in just being one of the guys Yax can lean on and call on and even still train.”
Ultimately that might be the best move right now.
“It's been like a whirlwind, man, it's been quick,” Johnson said of his role in Lendeborg’s career. “But, I mean, it's been something that I've always wanted to do since I got into coaching. I told myself, once I committed to coaching after I was done (playing professionally overseas), I want to help a kid make their dreams come true the way my dreams were able to come true. I didn't think I would happen quite this fast. To build a relationship with the players you coach or the guys that you're trying to teach basketball, to build a genuine relationship with them, is what I feel coaching is about. Helping them understand that they can be whatever it is they try to be in the sport, that's the reason why I got into it anyway.”