The Golden State Warriors committed a lot of money to lock up Jordan Poole right after the NBA Finals. Then, just one year later, they traded him in a salary-dump move.
And while his poor play in the postseason, offensive inconsistency, and non-existent defense played a part in that decision, it’s not like he was so bad for them that they needed to get him off the court.
The locker room, however, was a completely different thing. According to The Ringer’s Logan Murdock, Draymond Green wasn’t the only Warriors veteran who wasn’t high on Poole’s attitude, which obviously helped make the decision of let him go.
Warriors Veterans Didn’t Like Jordan Poole
“A lot of the times, he was isolated from the group, right,” Murdock said on Bill Simmons’ podcast. “He had allies on the team; Andrew Wiggins was an ally on the team, (Kevon) Looney, who they both are from Milwaukee, was a guy that liked Jordan.”
“All the established guys had some version of a problem with Jordan Poole,” Murdock added. “Whether it was Klay (Thompson) ironically saying that Jordan doesn’t pass the ball enough and shoots too much. And then you have Draymond, who sees Jordan as this guy, is like: ‘Yeah, I did punch him. I did do all these things, but now I don’t have a voice within the locker room because of what happened just now.’ And he has spoken about that on his podcast. And then you have Steph (Curry) who was like trying to bring all of this together and was like, ‘Man, I am behind you Jordan; can you just get right so we can win?'”
Poole constantly snubbed his veterans and coach Steve Kerr, so this doesn’t come as a surprise. His attitude and body language changed as soon as he got a big contract, and that doesn’t sit well with winning organizations.
Now, he’ll get what he wants and collect massive paychecks while taking 30+ shots per game in Washington. As for winning basketball games, that seems highly unlikely.