How Jordan Poole became an emerging part of Warriors’ future: ‘His answer to everything is more work’ (2024)

The pandemic paused Jordan Poole’s rookie season in March. Remember those naive NBA hopes of an April or May resumption? The business world was flying blind at the time. Fourteen days to slow the spread. Fourteen more days to slow the spread.

“Two months turned into four,” Poole said. “Four months turned into nine.”

Everyone has their own life-shifting 2020 story, some more challenging or harrowing than others. Poole’s is relatively straightforward. He went from arenas full of thousands to a sequestered room in San Francisco. As human interaction halted, he researched and absorbed a new, isolated reality. He made sure his parents were safe and comfortable. Then he made a pledge for an untimed, unknown offseason.

“I told myself I’d work out every day until we returned,” Poole said. “Whenever that was.”

The 29-30 Warriors have shifted priorities on the fly. James Wiseman is out for the season with a knee injury. Nico Mannion is back to getting DNPs. The half-hearted youth movement has been squashed. Stephen Curry is hot, and they’re intent on making late-season noise. Steve Kerr has rearranged his lineups to feature veterans who fit best in a Curry/Draymond Green ecosystem, scrapping the early-career minutes for the sake of development.

But Poole still remains. He’s 21, mixed into a rotation where everyone else is 25 or older. This nightly role should speed up his growth, but that’s not the primary reason he has it. Poole earned this chance and is now holding these minutes through a 6-3 stretch. He doesn’t appear overwhelmed, even when his shot drifts from hot to cold. He’s scored double-digits in 18 of the last 24 games — a vital boost for a team searching for non-Curry offense — but has also advanced in incremental ways as a defender.

“We can’t have our decision to play him based on whether he’s making shots or not,” Kerr said. “That’s not a recipe for consistent performance. He has to take that next step and he’s showing signs. Which is great.”

This is a notable leap for a recent 28th overall pick who looked out of his element as a rookie. It’s more impressive when considering the circumstances of his only offseason. Young players need live basketball reps, and that becomes near impossible when human-to-human contact is reduced so dramatically. But during nine empty months, Poole still found a way to get better.

“Yeah,” he said. “One hundred percent.”

How?The Athleticconducted recent interviews with Poole, Kerr, Chris DeMarco and Kris Weems on that subject. Weems is the Santa Cruz coach who guided Poole’s breakout in the G-League bubble. DeMarco is the Warriors assistant coach who has grinded with Poole from the beginning. Kerr oversees the entire project and finally gave the green light for Poole’s regular role. Poole is the one who worked himself to this moment, a quick emergence into a legitimate part of the Warriors’ current and future plans.

Curry broke his hand four games into Poole’s rookie season. D’Angelo Russell bobbed in and out of the lineup. Poole was drafted to watch as a rookie and eventually spend some extended time in the G League. Had he, maybe early reviews would’ve been softer. But injuries jolted him into high-usage action right away on the league’s worst team.

It went about as inefficiently as possible. Poole made fewer than 30 percent of his shots in his first 48 games. In the entire month of December, he was 3 of 24 on 3s and 1 of 14 on 2s. Defense was even more of a struggle. The Warriors were getting rocked game after game.

“That could have sunk a lot of people,” Kerr said. “It seemed to inspire him.”

“It always goes back to the work for him,” DeMarco said. “His answer to everything is more work.”

Scheduled off-day after a back-to-back? Still find a time to get in the gym. Late-night flight to Minnesota in the middle of a frigid road trip, hit DeMarco with a text to meet at the arena. Receive 25 minutes against the Rockets recently, still get up extra postgame jumpers with Mannion and Gary Payton II.

“Sometimes you see a lot of guys on the practice floor and don’t quite understand why they’re out there,” Green said. “When Jordan’s out there, he’s going hard every rep. Game speed.”

But the work doesn’t always show if the environment is too big. Poole needed the G League as a rookie and, in one of the Warriors’ healthier stretches with Russell back, they assigned Poole there. Weems was in his first season coaching Santa Cruz.

“He practiced at least twice with us,” Weems said. “The (three) games came quickly. He fit in. The guys appreciated him coming in and not trying to shoot every time. He was a playmaker, he was a second-side ballhandler. He took really efficient shots — good 3s, catch and shoot, didn’t shoot a whole lot off the dribble and he got to the basket, got to the foul line.”

The productive stretch at a lower level (26 efficient points per game) seemed to rebuild his confidence. Among prospects, Poole finally looked like a legit first-rounder. Then he returned to a Warriors team that would soon trade away Russell and Jacob Evans, who had been the backup point guard, for Andrew Wiggins. That set the stage for Poole to dip back into the NBA waters with better confidence and rhythm.

“You get 30, 40, 50 games under your belt, as a guard, you start to turn a corner,” Weems said. “You start to sense how teams attack you.”

Poole appeared in 12 games after the Russell trade. It’s the forgotten mini-breakthrough of his early career: 14.2 points on 48 percent overall and 33 percent from 3, plus 44 assists, flashing some playmaking flair with the ball in his hands.

“I remember one game in particular in Denver where he made some great passes, hit big shots,” Kerr said. “It was one of our best wins of the year and he played really well. He showed signs. Knocking down shots changes everything for young players. I think that helped going into the offseason.”

Straps, bands and a stationary bike. That’s about the extent of the Warriors’ permitted involvement in the early stages of the pandemic stoppage. Their training staff had those items delivered to Poole’s house. It was mostly up to the player to find creative ways to get better.

“Guys had to literally find their own gym, whether it was in their hometown, maybe a high school if they knew the right person,” Kerr said. “I think Steph shot in his backyard. We couldn’t help players with it because it was illegal under the NBA guidelines.”

Poole connected with a training facility in Burlingame, run by Packie Turner. Poole doesn’t like publicizing his work. He’s basically inactive on social media. But Turner said Poole was a daily presence for a chunk of those early, empty offseason months, diligent in his conditioning and skill training.

But the doors cracked open a bit more in June. The Warriors were allowed to open their practice facility under strict health guidelines. Four players at a time could be in the gym. Only individual work was permitted — one basket, one player, one coach. That coach needed to wear a mask and gloves.

“I worked out with Chris DeMarco the entire time,” Poole said. “Make sure you put him in there. Shoutout CD.”

Day after day of individual work, without any promise of game action in the near future, can get tedious. They had to figure out a way to keep it fresh and productive. Film helped. They watched clips of his rookie season and replayed sequences. But fresher content was needed.

The NBA restarted in August without the Warriors. Eight meaningless bubble games would’ve been useful for any young player, basically serving as a summer league. But the madness of a normal NBA calendar can overload a player’s brain. They might avoid basketball on their off nights. That wasn’t the case for an excluded Warriors team watching the bubble from home.

Poole spent most of his isolated days studying games. DeMarco’s phone would ping regularly. Some random defensive rotation or offensive action would catch Poole’s eye and he’d take a video with his phone and send it DeMarco’s way, attached to a question or comment.

“Pretty sure I have a bunch of clips back to back to back to back on my camera roll,” Poole said.

“(Those clips) came with some goodquestions,” DeMarco said.

Poole tracked the Heat’s playoff run closely. He was college teammates with Duncan Robinson and has a Milwaukee connection with Tyler Herro. Plus Miami has a similar read-and-react offensive system to the Warriors, predicated on constant sharp off-ball movement from its shooters. Heat playoff games provided valuable film to study and mimic.

“I’m huge with imagery and having a vision,” Poole said. “CD helps me picture live game actions. We’d watch it the night before and go over it physically on the court.”

Poole’s natural offensive skill is what got him drafted late in the first round. It’s why he has been jolted into the current rotation. It’s what will keep him in the league for a decade. But defensive improvement is his ticket to becoming an advanced level of NBA player.

“I’ve been a winner my entire life,” Poole said. “We won the national championship in high school. We went to the Final Four my first year at Michigan, Sweet Sixteen my second year. My entire career has been about winning. Make winning plays. I don’t see why anything would be different here.”

To win in the NBA playoffs, you must defend well individually and within the team concept. Easily exploited microwave scorers see decreased playing time as the stakes rise. Guys like Lou Williams are targeted more mercilessly. Their regular-season value is different from their playoff value.

“I was focused on defense in the summer,” Poole said. “Terminology. Small stuff. How and when to rotate. What does trap the box mean? Who would be where if this happens?”

“If you’re looking at the defense, you’re showing him guys who are similarly sized and effective,” DeMarco said. “Guys like Gary Harris or Avery Bradley. Guys who are similar in size and good one-on-one defenders. Then it’s important to understand how to be early, help the helper, angles on closeouts, shot challenges. What angles are you giving players? How are you keeping them out of the middle if that’s what the defense wants? Then being physical when bigs are diving, box outs.”

Poole started for the injured Curry in Memphis last month. It was in the middle of his scorching shooting streak, post G-League bubble. He had 25 points on 10 of 15 shooting in a needed win over a Grizzlies team just ahead of the Warriors in the standings. It’s the only time they won this season without Curry. He had six assists in 17 great minutes against the Bucks recently. He was a plus-3 in a one-point win.

That’s where he’s helping these Warriors out most, giving them offensive life in the non-Curry minutes, something Brad Wanamaker couldn’t. But it’s the small defensive details that have the coaching staff increasingly encouraged in the grander conversation about his longer-term development.

This is Poole trapping the box and cutting off a drive, then recovering back out to Danny Green.

This is Poole rotating over from the corner to be in position to tag the roller (Jonas Valančiūnas), but also scattering for a perfectly angled closeout on his man, Grayson Allen, a shooter you want to force into a drive. He even gets a mini-contest of Dillon Brooks after the extra pass and stays in alert positioning for the long rebound. You can see Ron Adams in the top left corner clapping after a well-executed defensive possession.

“It’s the details,” Poole said. “The older you get, the more knowledge you gain as an individual, as a human. The details matter in real life. The little small things you do matter. Whether it’s saying good morning to somebody. Whether it’s X’ing out on a closeout. Whether it’s giving a teammate an extra handshake.”

Poole hasn’t mastered anything. His defensive eyes have only cracked open slightly. He was pulled last week in the second quarter against the Nuggets after a particularly disengaged sequence where he wasn’t getting into the ball, wasn’t mixing it up physically and failed to even chase a loose ball.

“It’s not easy being a 6-foot-3 combo guard,” Kerr said. “I know this from personal experience. Because you’re going to end up guarding heavier guys, bigger guys. You’re going to end up cracking back, boxing out 7-footers. Massive guys who are going to throw you around. You really have to gird yourself when you’re in the fray. That’s a pretty dramatic change from college. You don’t feel that physicality and size and strength in college.”

Poole is 6-foot-4, a bit taller than Kerr in his playing days, with a frame that should add muscle in the years ahead. But until then, bigger scorers like Tobias Harris will identify him, attempt to drag him into a switch and power right through him to their spots, like this.

I asked Weems, who has coached him a ton in the G League, what kind of defender he thinks Poole can become.

“As he gets stronger, he’ll be able to guard the bigger wings,” Weems said. “Now, even the bigger 2s are like 6-7, 6-8. So even guarding a guy like Paul George and not being fazed by that, a guy that’s 30 pounds heavier and three inches taller, it’s about physically not letting them get to their spots. Physically as he gets stronger, grows into his man strength, he’ll be a better defender because he’s actually smart and he has good feet. He’s not a quick-burst athlete, but he has good agility, quick feet and he anticipates well. The big thing for him is not to reach, use his body to shield his man.”

Tobias Harris went right through him in that clip, huh?

“Hey, that’s a big dude,” Weems said.

True.

“(Poole’s) rounding into form,” Weems said. “He’s still a baby. He has, I think, two more levels of strength he can get to. A couple years from now, that 24-, 25-year-old strength. Then when he’s 28, 30. He may not be physically bigger. He’s probably 200 pounds, 205, maybe a little less. I bet he’ll be able to play up to 210, but he’ll still be really lean because his body will have changed. He works in the weight room. He’s committed. And he has some great examples. Steph is maniacal about his work. But look at Steph. He’s 33, and Jordan is 21. Steph wasn’t nearly as big as Jordan coming into the league. So you can see the progression, how that 6-3, 6-4 range, you fill out and all of a sudden you don’t get pushed around anymore.”

Poole was partially in the rotation to open the season. The Warriors had signed Wanamaker and Kerr had committed to establishing a defensive identity. He gave the veteran the backup point guard job behind Curry and toggled between Poole and Mychal Mulder for that final guard spot, off the ball, only used in spurts. Mulder shot it well, Poole didn’t.

Wanamaker wasn’t offensively capable of handling the job he was tasked with. He isn’t the type of shot creator or playmaker who can generate enough offense in the non-Curry minutes. Poole fit better in that role, as has become obvious. At the sacrifice of some sturdier defense, perhaps he should’ve been used as the team’s primary backup point guard from the beginning.

But he was also rusty. Poole hadn’t played much competitive basketball for nine months. All those offseason individual training sessions and film imagery had advanced his NBA brain well, but young players need a court canvass for some trial-and-error. He’d performed well in the team’s brief offseason practice bubble and even got in a few secretive high-level summer scrimmages with Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant, among others.

“How’d you find that out?” Poole said. “I normally keep that low-key. I don’t work out with too many people often. It was cool. I don’t talk about that too much.”

But a few summer scrimmages, a few preseason games, a handful of practices and a limited, structured role running a veteran second unit for Kerr isn’t the proper environment for a creative scorer to stretch his legs, explore his talents and catch a rhythm. That’s why the G League is there. So a few weeks in advance of the Orlando bubble, Poole and the coaching staff both agreed that would be best for him.

“Go out there and play 37 minutes, 40 minutes a night,” Poole said. “It really kind of got me in shape. Just being able to see things game-speed. See game-like moments. It felt good to be in a lot of clutch situations again, a lot of clutch moments, being able to be the guy coach wanted to make a play, get a bucket at the end of the game. Once you get in a rhythm, get in a routine, that’s hard to break. That’s what a lot of older guys tell me. Once you find your routine, stick with it.”

Poole wasn’t great to open the bubble. He went 7-of-22 shooting in his debut and turned it over seven times in the second game. Santa Cruz lost both. Green, watching from afar, reached out to Weems.

“When I first get that text from Draymond, it took me a minute to figure out who DG is,” Weems laughed. “I’m like, oh, shit, you dumbass, it’s Draymond. I get the text, we end up calling each other. He asked, ‘What’s wrong with JP?’ I’m like, as bad as it might’ve looked, he’s an emotional kid, he’s learning how to be more mature on the floor, more even.”

Poole was chatty with refs, he was engaging with trash-talking opponents, he was letting mistakes compound. Sounds a bit like Draymond. But Green typically has the ability to funnel that energy into the next play and toward winning.

“Draymond said he’d love to see him capitalize on his opportunity, not let it go to waste,” Weems said. “That would’ve been more, like, I’m down here to shoot every time and not being a good teammate. That wasn’t the case. I had to dispel that for Draymond. ‘Hey, sometimes you have to stop talking to the refs, sometimes you gotta stop talking shit to the other team. You can’t get distracted.’ That was my message to JP. Draymond, that resonated with him. He’s like, ‘I’m the first one to get distracted.’ But as a coach, it’s important guys can be fiery, can be committed to the game, but can always pull themselves back and get focused.”

Poole’s game grew rapidly in Orlando. The huge scoring numbers speak for themselves, but it was the extra-effort plays that signaled maturity and led to team success. Santa Cruz won nine straight at one point behind Poole’s rise.

“Early on, we showed some film of him missing guys, not throwing it ahead in transition when we might’ve got a layup,” Weems said. “The growth from then to later in the bubble, we were showing clips of transition of how we want to compress the defense and throw the ball ahead and he’sthe one always throwing the ball ahead every clip. There was a play, it wasn’t a chasedown block. But it was I shoot a corner 3, guy runs by me and instead of pouting about the missed shot, I run back, get a hand on the ball, we’re going the other way and I go back down and score. Not quitting on plays because your shot didn’t fall. He got better at the competition factor. It’s not just about putting the ball in the basket. What do I do to help the team?”

How much stronger are you?

“In terms of physically?” Poole responds. “I don’t know. I’m pretty slippery. I go around people.”

But you went through Ben Simmons the other day for a layup.

“That’s a big guard,” Poole said. “That’s the biggest of guards right there.”

So you have to be stronger. Because you don’t make that play as a rookie.

“I mean…if I had the opportunity to try that in a game as a rookie, I would’ve tried it,” Poole said. “I just don’t know if I had the opportunity. It was more so just a back cut and I’m going to go to the glass aggressively, no matter if there’s a big there or not. I have confidence in my finishing. We just played Brook Lopez. An exceptional defender. I was aggressive then.”

Probably true. You were a confident rookie. But you struggled to finish in the lane in traffic. That layup against Simmons looked like a more physical scorer better able to absorb and finish through contact.

“Ummm, yeah, I’d say so,” Poole said. “But I’m only 21 years old. People don’t get their grown man bodies until they’re 26, 27.”

Poole is having this back-and-forth after a recent practice. He’s engaged in the conversation, but also monitoring the Heat-Lakers game taking place on TNT. Robinson curls into a 3 as Poole is mid-answer, discussing the point-five rule recently detailed by our Ethan Strauss. It’s self-explanatory. The Warriors coaching staff has told him to make a definitive decision with the ball within a half-second of catching it. It’s partially led to his offensive breakout.

“Point-five has been — oh my goodness, Duncan,” Poole stops, then starts again. “Point-five has been introduced ever since I was drafted. We’ve talked about it a lot. Catch, pass or dribble. I think really once you catch up to the pace of the game, feel the pace of the game, point-five feels more comfortable. It’s tough to do point-five when you’re a step behind, a step slow. Because you’re trying to analyze everything so much.”

Poole returned from the bubble and immediately dropped this seven-game outburst: 20.9 points per game on 55 percent shooting and 44 percent from 3 at a high volume. He was 23 of 52 from deep. He had 18 assists and only two turnovers during the stretch. It was his arrival, a loud message to the coaching staff to play him every night through the mistakes, to view him as a core rotational piece to be grown, not a late-first-rounder with a fading future with the franchise.

“We have the greatest shooter of all time on our team, and you’ve got to fit around him,” Poole said. “But Coach gave me the keys to the second unit a little bit. It allowed me to take charge, take control, be the scorer and aggressive playmaker in that unit. However many minutes I get, whatever it is, I just know I’m going out there in that second quarter and the coaches want me to play my game.”

Where is this going for Poole and the Warriors? To be determined. But the trend line is positive. And the team’s cornerstone is a believer.

“He has that irrational confidence that is necessary to get through some of those ups and downs,” Curry said. “I would love to show him some film of me in my second year, some of the ups and down I went through, trying to find your rhythm, find your shots as opportunities come and go. Just keep your confidence of who you are as a player. He’s going to continue to help us and continue to get better.”

(Top photo: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports)