During Jordan Poole‘s peak, he scored 30 points, 29 points, and 27 points in three consecutive games in the playoffs against the future champion Denver Nuggets. Poole was a pivotal piece, arguably the second-most important player on the championship 2021-2022 Warriors. He was an unstoppable 3-level scorer who was anointed the “3rd Splash Brother” by the media and players alike. It was said that he was going to fill Steph Curry‘s role as lead star and starting PG on the “2nd timeline” Warriors alongside Andrew Wiggins and Jonathan Kuminga. Everybody agreed that Poole’s future looked incredibly bright.
In just a few short years, he has been reduced to a punchline. After Poole’s downfall, he is one of the worst players on one of the worst teams in the league. How did Jordan Poole go from the future of the NBA to a failed star so quickly?
What Happened to Jordan Poole? Downfall of a Future Star
Poole’s Finest Hour
You can’t have a downfall if you were never on top. For a very short period of time, Poole was on top of the world. During the 2021-2022 regular season, he was averaging 18.5 PPG on an incredibly efficient 59.8 true shooting percentage. Generally, during the playoffs, players get worse. The defense is more difficult, the opposing teams are better, and the refs let the game be more physical. Even the greats have worse splits in the playoffs than in the regular season. This wasn’t the case for Jordan Poole. During the 2022 playoffs, Poole averaged 23.5 PPG on an otherworldly 62.7 TS%.
In the first playoff game of the series against the Nuggets, Poole dropped 30 points, outdueling 3-time MVP Nikola Jokic. On May 1, against the Memphis Grizzlies, Steph, Klay, and Dray all had off shooting nights. However, it didn’t matter, because Poole put up 31 points to carry the Warriors to a 1-point victory over the Grizzlies. Three weeks later, on May 20, Poole put up 23 points to help the Warriors advance to an ultimately insurmountable 3-0 lead over the Dallas Mavericks. During the 2022 playoff run, Poole outdueled Jokic, Ja Morant, and Luka Doncic. After the Warriors won the title, people were declaring him the future of the NBA. He was the man, and then all of a sudden, he wasn’t anymore.
The Beginning of the End
On October 7, 2022, Draymond Green punched Poole in the face and knocked him unconscious during a Warriors practice. The organization then didn’t punish Draymond at all. Many people think this was the start of the end for Poole, but the stats don’t show this to be true. As the Warriors season went on, Poole’s role grew. Klay Thompson wasn’t nearly the player he was pre-injury, and Wiggins seemed to have lost his mojo that made him so effective the year prior. Poole was given more responsibility and averaged a career high in MPG. He ultimately lived up to it, averaging a career-high 20.4 PPG. Despite a lackluster postseason from the Warriors, getting outdueled by LeBron James in the Western Conference Semifinals, Poole was still productive, averaging 19.8 PPG on an efficient 57.2 TS%.
The real beginning of the end came after that season. On July 7, 2023, the Wizards traded Chris Paul to the Warriors for Poole, some midlevel picks, and some bench players. The NBA world was initially optimistic about the trade for Poole. Many argued that it was finally a chance for him to step out of Steph’s shadow and lead his own team. Kevin Garnett predicted that Poole would be the new James Harden, breaking out as the lead star on a new team. He and newly-minted teammate Kyle Kuzma were both productive players on championship teams. There was a lot of hope for this new squad in Washington after years of disappointing Bradley Beal-led squads.
Poole’s Downfall
Poole’s first game on the Wizards was inauspicious, as he was a game-low -12 in a blowout loss to the Pacers. The season did not improve from there. He is currently averaging 15.8 PPG, down almost 5 PPG from his peak just a year before. His defense has been some of the worst in the league, contributing to a -1.0 WS. This casts him as one of the most negative players in the league. His eFG% is down almost 50 points from a year before (.514 to .473). The Poole and Kuzma-led Wizards are 9-43, on pace to win only 14 games this season. Most visibly, he has contributed to a number of embarrassing viral lowlights like this one, or this one, or this one. Poole has been bad this year, plain and simple.
He quickly began to lose the support he had around the league before the season. Garnett retracted his one-time support for Poole, stating: “He does not belong in the league”. The team reportedly quickly began losing faith in him, trying to find any good trades for him away from Washington DC. He began to get on the nerves of his teammates almost immediately with his showboating and seeming apathy for the team’s abysmal record. Right now, Poole’s downfall has caused the media to cast him as one of the worst players in the league.
The Last Word
When he was on, Poole was electric. He was the kind of player who could and would explode for 30, 40, or even 5o points out of nowhere. When he was at his peak, he was unstoppable. He could out-duel and out-score anybody in the league on his best day. Poole is only a year and change removed from that peak, but it already seems like it was a decade or more ago. I hope Poole returns to the player he was. The league would benefit immensely from Poole leading a resurgent top-tier Washington DC squad. Unfortunately, unless things turn around, it seems like Poole might only amount to wasted potential.
