How quickly things change.
Around this time last year, Jordan Poole was playing his way into a lucrative four-year contract, one that was a signal by the Warriors organization that they saw him as a crucial piece for years to come.
Now he’s looking virtually unplayable when the Warriors need him most. Poole’s regular season was disappointing, and his postseason has been even worse. Monday’s Game 4 may have been rock bottom, when Poole played just 10 minutes and went 0-for-4 with two turnovers.
Poole has always been a high-variance player, but Tim Kawakami of The Athletic explained on KNBR Wednesday that the downside of that variance has been far too consistent.
“He’s got a kind of borderline game,” Kawakami said to Murph & Mac. “Sometimes you want that incredible energy and creativity and sometimes he runs himself into trouble, and he’s been doing it constantly this postseason. He was fine last postseason. Some people say he was great. Nah, he wasn’t great. He was good, he was solid. He was what they needed. He was a couple baskets every quarter that they wouldn’t have got otherwise, but he wasn’t carrying them. He never carried them.
“This postseason it’s been mostly bad stuff and his minutes are getting reduced because of it. And I don’t think they can count on him. He’s now a bonus part of them.”
Compounding this issue seems to be the tanking of Poole’s confidence. The worse he’s played, the less opportunity he’s gotten. The less opportunity he’s gotten, the worse he’s played. It’s a paradox that can only be solved by giving Poole some rope to right the ship. The only problem is, the Warriors can’t do that with their playoff backs against the wall.
To Kawakami, Poole’s fragile confidence is as much an issue as his play has been.
“Maybe that demoralized Poole a little bit, but that’s another sign,” Kawakami said of Poole losing playing time. “I’m harsh on him and Poole fans don’t like that and I don’t think Jordan likes it that much. But this is the reality. You prove who you are on the basketball court in these big games, and he’s been smaller in them this season. The great players are bigger, the great players assume the role.”
So what does this all mean? For starters, if the Warriors don’t win this series, Joe Lacob has said he’s not going to bring everyone back and fork over the money for a $500 million-plus payroll. At least one player has to go. At the moment, it’s hard to square why that wouldn’t be Poole.
“I think the Warriors management…is not having a romantic glow about Jordan Poole right now,” Kawakami said. “They signed him to the four-year, $123 million deal in October. I think they’re taking a very practical view of this. There’s a Harrison Barnes element to this. We saw what happened when he kind of dipped out in the 2016 Finals. I don’t know that that’s Jordan Poole’s future but there’s a precedent for this. I think he is tradable. I think he might have a great game tonight, more likely at home than on the road, but they’re going to need him again at some point, he might not show up again at some point.
“I think the future is questionable for him at best on this team. Part of signing him to this deal was to retain the value. You retain the value kind of like you did when you signed D’Angelo Russell. You just signed him for the value and then traded him for Wiggins and the pick that became [Jonathan] Kuminga. Could happen this way for Jordan Poole. I don’t know why they wouldn’t consider it at least in the long-term.
“If you talk about revamping this team, instead of breaking it apart, I think they’re looking at Jordan Poole saying ‘he’s not going to be one of the main guys.’ It doesn’t feel like it. Maybe in the future you see what you can get for him. I think that’s one way to revamp this thing instead of breaking them up.”
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