Kerr sat three starters at halftime and kept Yaxel Lendeborg on the floor

The five men Steve Kerr named to start the preseason played three minutes and 14 seconds together in Honolulu on Sunday. Kerr made his first substitution with 8:46 left in the first quarter, and the group did not share the floor again.

Stephen Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Yaxel Lendeborg, Draymond Green and Al Horford have no other game minutes as a unit. The Clippers won, 104-101, at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The box score says more about one of the five than about the group. Lendeborg, the rookie, played 18 minutes and 44 seconds, the most minutes of the 18 Warriors who appeared.

Three ways the job goes to somebody else#

Lendeborg is not in the lineup at the Lakers on October 21 if one of three things happens first. Sunday bears on each of them.

The men ahead of him come back. Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody did not play, and the NBA's box score lists both as out with an injury or illness. Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area, who covered the game, wrote that Butler will be sidelined for at least a few more months as he recovers from a torn ACL.

Somebody already in camp takes it. Kerr brought every alternative off the bench. Curry, Green and Horford were done at halftime by plan, and the five who started the third quarter were Lendeborg, Podziemski, De'Anthony Melton, Gui Santos and Charles Bassey. Three starters were replaced. The rookie was not one of them.

Santos and Melton, either of whom could start in his place, joined him after halftime. Will Richard played 17 minutes and opened neither half.

Kerr decides he is not ready. Lendeborg made one of his six shots, a corner three for the game's first points. He finished with four points, a game-high nine rebounds, three assists and a block.

"Yaxel was good," Kerr said afterward, per Johnson. "We need him to be more aggressive."

Kerr singled out a play early in the third quarter. Lendeborg caught a pass over his defender in transition and tried to feed Bassey under the basket. Bassey lost the ball, and the Clippers made a three at the other end. "That's got to be a layup," Kerr said. Curry made the same point. He said the club does not "want anything passive" from the rookie, and that he hopes Lendeborg can thrive on being allowed to play through his mistakes.

Kerr's one complaint was about a shot Lendeborg did not take.

The condition Kerr attached#

Kerr announced the five after practice on Thursday, October 1, and put a limit on it in the same answer.

"The question will be, can we do that opening night given the age of Al and the minutes and all that stuff, who knows," he said, per Johnson. "But for now, that's how we'll start."

Horford is 40. Kerr said Saturday that Horford, Curry and Green would play the first half only, probably between 12 and 16 minutes each, and all three finished inside that range. If Horford is the one who comes out of the five on October 21, the vacancy is at center, where Bassey started the second half on Sunday. Kristaps Porzingis did not travel to Hawaii because of a health issue, Johnson reported, and the box score lists him as not with the team.

If rest is the worry, the opener is not half of a back-to-back. Golden State's first one is the second and third games of the season, Memphis at Chase Center on October 23 and Phoenix on the road on October 24.

What three minutes can carry#

Three minutes and 14 seconds out of 48 is a small sample, and "for now" was Kerr's own phrase. Five preseason games remain: the Lakers at Chase Center on Tuesday, Portland on the road on Wednesday, then Sacramento on October 10, the Lakers again on October 13 and Portland on October 16. Kerr has said some players will stay home from the Portland trip, so the five he starts on Tuesday is the next reading.

Kerr can still start Santos or Melton on opening night and give Lendeborg the same minutes off the bench. Sunday did not rule that out. It showed how he sorted the roster the first time he had to choose. Lendeborg started, he stayed on when three starters sat, and what Kerr wanted from him afterward was a layup he had passed up.

The call on this site since August 31 is that Lendeborg starts on October 21. It stands.

Sources: NBA.com box score and play-by-play, Golden State at LA Clippers, October 4, for the score, minutes, starters, substitutions, statistics and the players listed as out; ESPN's game summary and play-by-play for the same game; Dalton Johnson, NBC Sports Bay Area, October 1, 3 and 4, for the Kerr and Curry quotations, the minutes plan, the third-quarter play and Butler's status; NBA.com's Golden State team schedule for the remaining preseason dates and the opening regular-season dates.