Note: I recommend that either you play this audio track while you are reading cause there are songs in it. OR press play when you see audio tracks later throughout the post and keep reading.
When I heard the news of the trade, all the oxygen left my body. I lied to my friend on the phone that I had a work call so I could catch my breath. More than one person reached out to see if I was ok. I was not ok. It felt like heartbreak.
4 days prior, new GM Mike Dunleavy went out of his way to say that he expected that Jordan Poole to be here for at least the rest of his four year contract. I understand now that not only was he taking calls from other teams but he was also actively shopping Jordan’s contract. It felt like betrayal.
3 days after that I ordered a Jordan Poole shirt and spent the evening watching the Warriors/Trailblazers game, where JP scored 41. 2 days later I got in my car and took a road trip to distract myself with some crashing Pacific Ocean, artichoke bread and goats.
1 day after that my therapist said, “No, your feelings are valid. You have every reason to be sad and mad. I was wondering how you were holding up.”
Back up for a minute. I don’t expect you to remember so I’m going to remind you that the whole reason I watch the Warriors at all is because of Jordan Poole. He was my favorite player at Michigan in recent memory because of his confidence, creativity and joy and he led me right to watching the Warriors. Steph and Klay didn’t get me watching every game - Jordan did.
I mistakenly told my nephew that I have seen every one of Jordan’s games since college. That’s not true - I saw only a handful of games from his rookie NBA year, before I had cable and before the pandemic (which prompted me to get cable). But outside than that, I have watched every minute of his college and professional games, including his G League games. And for sure, I have grown to love and appreciate this cast of characters we call the Dubs, but my joy has been and is watching the journey of Jordan Poole.
I’m a Taurus. I was born in the Year of the Dog. Loyalty is a thing for me. It’s the thing for me. So this feels personal and since my therapist said my feelings are valid, welcome to the inside of my head where this song has been on repeat.
So let’s talk about the reasons. Here’s what we’re not gonna do.
We’re also not gonna conjecture about what JP said to Draymond. Cause that, at this point, is irrelevant. As is the punch.
It’s about how the organization didn’t handle it. Draymond suspends himself and stays away for a week during pre-season. The Warriors did not suspend Draymond so that he didn’t miss the ring ceremony. During the pre-broadcast of that game, Green airs a video on TNT which is a soft focus PR piece about him. Jordan stays almost entirely silent the whole week, briefly answering that “we are here to win games”.
That was it. The Warriors communicated that it was business as usual. And that’s the problem - that publicly, there was nothing. The Warriors had many options on the table that they didn’t take. They could have actually suspended Green for the ring ceremony. They could have let him participate in the ceremony, but not play him in the game. They could have not started him. They could have suspended him after that game. They could have, and should have done something public. They should have made him earn his way back not only to his leadership role, but his playing role.
Poole stayed quiet the entire season. If he was occasionally impatient with reporters at the end, so what-he had a tough post-season and for all his showmanship on the court, he has never liked press conferences, often arriving with a stopwatch and holding questions to 3 minutes total.
And yet somehow, the public word on Poole this season was how immature he was, how he needed to grow up. Are you kidding? He never said what would have been easy to say - Draymond is a jerk, he’s an asshole, he prides himself on being a leader but he can’t hold himself accountable. There were some on-court faces interpreted as sulking - Poole’s known for those - but this was a season where Draymond, Curry and Klay all got ejected from games but somehow Poole was the immature one in the public eye.
It appears that this is a pattern of the Warriors. This Kevin Durant clip (nsfw) has been recirculating recently - talking about his relationship with Draymond (who he had considered a friend) and the fallout from a shouting match after a Clippers game. Durant says “if we are a family we can move past it but let’s all talk about it because it happened in front of the whole team…don’t sweep it under the rug because you want to win. That’s a reason we’re not gonna win. When [the team didn’t talk about it] I just said fuck it, let me just hoop and worry about myself.” That sounds familiar. There’s a cost of having Draymond and the Warriors keep paying it.
One of the digs on Poole is that he got a big contract and then played worse. He did sign a big contract, but it starts now with the Wizards - the Warriors didn’t pay a dime of it. He got the contract, in part because he was an unexpected part of why they won the title, in part because Tyler Herro, a player just like him, signed a $120 million contract that week and in part because he got punched and the Warriors wanted to indicate their belief in him. Without the punch, the Warriors might have been able to wait on the contract or offer a lower number.
There are those who say “but those turnovers” and “those mad dashes to the basket” Ok…let’s look at that. JP had 3.1 turnovers/game. Steph Curry had 3.2 turnovers/game. JP had more total turnovers because he played 82 games to Steph’s 56. As for trying to get his own points by driving to the rim–that’s what Kerr wanted him to do. The Warriors take very few free throws. Kerr kept telling him to drive to the basket and get a bucket or get free throws. He did.
Look, anyone that watches JP knows that he was often a classic little brother on that team. I am certain that he was sometimes a playful pest.
It also seems clear that the younger players liked him a lot- Looney, Wiggins, Payton, Kuminga, Moody, Donte. This is the same reputation he had at Michigan - his teammates loved playing with him. This pic is from the playoff series in Sacramento - right after Wiggins came back to the team from a two month absence for family reasons.
Or this video giving a shoulder massage to the Splash Brothers on the sideline
Or the head on the shoulder hugs
Curry liked playing with him. There are so many pictures to prove it. And it’s these moments with Curry and Poole that I am going to miss the most. Here, take a moment to look at the pics. I’ll wait.
JP has always been known for being a hard worker. First in the gym, last to leave. Watches a ton of film. Asks a lot of questions.
Ok. Hard worker. Young player. Already a contributor to winning a title and has a high ceiling? That’s a player you want on a team.
Maybe JP knew this was coming. Maybe someone - his agent, or Andre Iguodala - took him aside and said, “the price of the big contract is that they probably won’t keep you and Klay unless we get another title and maybe not even if we get another title”. That seems clear in retrospect - that it was Klay or JP and since both played well in the regular season and struggled in the playoffs, they are keeping Klay.
Did this play against the Wizards leave an impression on them? Maybe.
What’s done is done. At this point, it is probably a good thing for Poole to leave the Warriors. Or at least not a bad thing. He has earned a starting position and barring significant injury, he was not going to have a starting role on the Warriors for the next two years. He needs to have enough minutes on the floor that he can get even stronger. Players love having a chip on their shoulder and now he’s got a whole world to prove wrong. I’m not sure the Wizards are a good landing location for an introvert who likes nature and photography, but maybe? The D.C. area is loaded with Michigan alums, so he should have a built in fan base. (JB - I’m looking right at you - go to a Wizards game). He will certainly be a star there.
But it is also true that the Warriors have done him wrong and that makes me feel conflicted about the team. It wasn’t only a trade. It was duplicitous. It was letting the bully get their way. It was talking about the Dubs culture of joy and then being so ugly.
While the trade might be a good thing for the Warriors and for Jordan Poole, it definitely is not a good thing for me. For three years, my love of watching Jordan Poole and my love of watching the Warriors was the same thing and now they aren’t. What the hell do I do now? Am I seriously considering watching 82 Wizards games? (Yes) And 82 Warriors games? (also yes). Is this the last time I write about Jordan Poole? (Damn, is it?) This whole project of watching every Warriors games was really about what if I commit to doing the thing that brings me joy? So—is my joy from JP? Or the Warriors? Or both? Or maybe it’s neither? I hope that’s not true. And then there are the financial realities - watching JP means getting NBA League Pass. Draymond’s punch has a literal cost for me of $25/month.
Two days ago a small miracle happened. Acceptance of a sort. The trade was finally official and the media announcements and tribute posts came out. I listened to Aloe Blacc sing The Man enough times to make a difference in his Spotify payout and I started to feel a little better. One of the themes of this year (in my life) is learning to embrace reality as it is. Are the Warriors going to flip the switch? No, they are a .500 team. Am I ever going to get a correct paycheck from SFUSD? No. Not once in 15 months and counting. Am I going to run into Jordan Poole at Baker Beach? No, you aren’t m’dear, he lives in D.C.
Elizabeth, appreciate what is.
I’ve been selfish, hoarding my joy, an embarrassment of riches to watch Klay, Steph, Loon, GPII and Wiggins - I needed Poole to be on this team too? I can share. And it’s not that I have to watch 164 games. I get to. In 82 of those games, Jordan Poole will have more playing time-a bonus for me. There’s a whole universe of East Coast basketball fans who have rarely seen the Jordan Poole experience. All of you Detroit and Chicago and New England and DC folks of mine will get to see him play more often and in a more appropriate time zone. Bonus for you. My favorite male tennis player Francis Tiafoe is a Wizards fan. He’s gonna love JP. D.C is going to love him as well-Kamala Harris already does. D.C. could use a lot more joy - it can be such a serious place. (D.C. fan base - you better not break this man’s spirit, if you even try, I will find you and kick you in the shins.)
Let’s be anthemic here.
Watch what happens when you tell a supremely confident hard worker that he’s overrated at 24. What are you going to say that he hasn’t heard before? He came off the bench in college. Didn’t stop him from getting to the NCAA finals or having a March Madness buzzer beater that is still played in their highlight reel. He was widely considered the worst draft pick of his class. His first year the Warriors were the worst team in the NBA. They sent him to a stint in the G League, thinking that was where he would stay. Instead, he played his way out, became the 6th man in the rotation and got a ring.
Jordan Poole knows who he is.
He’s gonna dazzle us.
Thank you Jordan for being part of our City and a big part of my joy. Here’s to all the magic ahead of you.
The Spotify Playlist for A Game At A Time (the songs that play in my head during the writing of each post): too many to count. But primarily these: Don Henley “The Heart of the Matter”, Shalom “Did It To Myself”, the Lemonheads “Down About It”, Jon Secada “Just Another Day”, Cynthia Erivo “The Good”, Aloe Blacc “The Man”