Golden State Warriors fourth year guard Jordan Poole has finally confirmed what many suspected was true. When he sees baddies in the crowd, he elevates his game with the hopes of catching their attention and potentially meeting up with them after the game.
His former teammate Nico Mannion confronted Poole about it.
“I was actually on the phone with him the other day and I had seen a video and it said Jordan Poole plays like he’s trying to steal your girl!” said Mannion. “And I told him that and he was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the point. They get there with you and they leave with me,’ and he just started laughing.”
Nico Mannion confirms that Jordan Poole’s motivation comes from the baddies courtside at games 😭 pic.twitter.com/DKuf2yRcGs
— jose ☔️ (@KlayForTrey) September 11, 2022
Of course this is all said tongue in cheek and the women aren’t the reason Poole plays well. He’s an extremely talented player and the Warriors selecting him 28th in the 2019 NBA draft means virtually any team could’ve drafted him.
Poole averaged 18.5 points per game last season on 55 eFG% and 60 TS% efficiency splits. He was +1.5 in EPM last season, good enough for the 84th percentile in the league.
This is the NBA, the most competitive basketball league in the world and it’s also a business. While Poole is fresh off a championship season and looking like he’s ready to break out, there are a few things to consider.
He’s an elite shooter as we’ve pointed out, but he needs to be better on the defensive side of the floor. He won’t be an All-Defensive player, but he can’t be a negative. Poole was -0.7 in defensive EPM and that was for the league’s second-best defense last season.
“I don’t know that he can do anything more to step up offensively. So the area where he can still improve is at the defensive end. I thought last year in the playoffs when he was fully engaged and really playing with physicality, he showed he can be a legit two-way player, but he knows he hasn’t become that consistently. And so that’s the next step for Jordan,” head coach Steve Kerr said on Damon & Ratto.
Poole is also on the last year of his four-year, $10 million rookie contract. He is extension-eligible but the team has not made an offer yet. The Warriors already have the highest team payroll at just over $196 million and they will have a luxury tax bill in the neighborhood of $165 million.
Don’t cry for team governor Joe Lacob, whose net worth is about $1.5 billion. But an extension for Poole might not be happening so soon.
“We have time to do those things,” Joe Lacob said right after the Warriors won the title. “There’s no rush on all that. I’m sure there will be some discussions this summer, but we haven’t talked to them. They are two great players [Poole and Andrew Wiggins] in their 20s. We’d love to retain them, but this becomes the problem going forward when you have a team like ours where you’ve got three guys that have been with us for a long time, make a lot of money, huge salaries: Steph [Curry], Klay [Thompson], and Draymond [Green]. You’ve got these two guys who will be getting into, well, Wiggins already is in big salary mode and wants to stay there. And Poole is going to be clearly making a lot more money.”
These things work themselves out one way or another. Whether it’s in the Bay with the Warriors or another team, Poole will be doing his thing and keeping an eye out for who’s watching from the stands.
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