Golden State Warriors guard Jordan Poole is not having a good season, and that’s part of the reason the team is struggling. Poole’s poor play can be traced back to that fateful incident last October when his teammate Draymond Green punched him in the face and sealed the team’s fate. But maybe not Poole’s.
Poole’s Play Last Season Secured The Bag
Last season during the Warriors’ playoff run to the title Poole averaged 17 points per game on 50/39/91 shooting splits. He parlayed his spectacular play into a four-year, $128 million contract extension that kicks in on July 1.
But this season has been rough. He’s averaging 20 points per game on 42/32/87 splits. He’s in the 60th percentile in EPM, and a net negative on the floor. Down from last season’s +1.5 and 84th percentile ranking.
But all is not lost for Poole. Ups and downs are part and parcel for life in the NBA. Kevin Durant was a net negative on the floor as a rookie and even during his second and third year some plus-minus stats showed him as negative player, despite already displaying elite scoring talent. It’s worked out pretty well for the 7-foot sniper.
Not saying Poole is KD, but there is plenty of precedent for having a down season and bouncing back. Player development is not linear.
Poole’s two-time MVP teammate Stephen Curry offered some perspective on what he tells Poole and the reality of life in the league.
“Keep doing what you’re doing,” Curry told reporters Tuesday in Dallas. “I say that in the sense of the work that he puts in. He’s an extremely hard worker. He has a high standard of himself.
“The biggest piece of what we do on a day-to-day basis is not being on the emotional roller coaster of everything being results-based. There are certain things you can’t control, and certain things you can.
“What you can control is how you keep coming back to the lab, as we call it, and putting the time in mentally and physically to keep getting better, and the results will show.”
Whether You’re Early In Your Career Or A Vet, It’s About The Work
Not only is an NBA season a grind, so too is an NBA career. It is largely the same activities day in and day out. You have to love the work to make it in this league.
Curry is correct in that all Poole can control is the work he puts in. Sometimes shots fall, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes you make stops on defense, sometimes you don’t. This is the league. You’ve got to be able to handle the ups and downs or you’ll flame out.
Getting too high or too low based on success or failure is not what the great ones do. They aren’t on the roller coaster. They find the joy in the carousel.
By all accounts, Poole is an extremely hard worker and loves to put in the work. This is what will carry him through this difficult season. One that has also found his name embroiled in the tabloids as a possible love interest of 22-year-old rap sensation Ice Spice from the Bronx.
Getting punched by Green and then having it seen all around the world had to be tough to deal with and he might still be dealing with its aftereffects. The team definitely is, and we’ll see what that means for Green’s future this summer. Just something to think about when you ask what’s wrong with Jordan Poole. But for Poole the best way to ensure more success than not is to be in love with the process. That begins and ends with the work.
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