After decades of subpar teams and bad luck, the Golden State Warriors have landed on a gold mine. The Dubs are heading to their sixth Finals in their last eight seasons. Only three other NBA franchises have done that ever.
Not every day do teams with future Hall of Famers have young players waiting in the wings (literally) to take over. Ask the New York Knicks. Their fans would do anything to acquire just one transcendent talent just once in their lifetimes.
Jordan Poole is well on his way to leading the Dubs into the new era. For as transcendent a player as Steph Curry is, Poole has taken the league by storm and helped raise the Warriors’ ceiling from a typical playoff team back to championship contenders.
Dubs Head Coach Offers Words of Wisdom for Jordan Poole
In a recent profile from The Ringer, longtime Warriors scribe, Logan Murdock, delves into Poole’s career, ranging from his upbringing to his distaste for press conference interviews.
As great as Poole has been this season, there were times when he fell into bad habits and became ineffective when his shot wasn’t failing. The third-year guard had to figure out ways to affect the game positively when his shot was off.
“I give him little hints all the time and things that I wouldn’t say to Steph [Curry] about shot selection,” head coach Steve Kerr told Murdock last year. “I will say to Jordan [Poole] because Jordan hasn’t earned that yet. In his third year, his 3-point percentage isn’t what Steph’s is. And so without trying to thwart him and keep him from being himself, I’m trying to nudge toward really high percentage shot taking rather than emulating Steph. That’s a dangerous game, emulating Steph.”
That was a huge difference in Poole’s game this season. Instead of trying to create shots off the dribble and launch Curry-esque threes from mid-court, Poole learned to play within the Warriors’ system—the movement without the ball—something Curry has mastered himself and helped the team win three championships.
Hard Work and Perseverance Paid Off for Poole
It was not easy. Even as a first-round pick, Poole was assigned to the G-League to figure out how to play at the NBA level. Even though he would dominate at that level, there was still a steep learning curve the young guard needed to overcome.
Poole is described as someone who worked his tail off to drastically improve during the stoppage of the pandemic. He would constantly watch film and figure out ways to get back in the gym to work on certain elements of his play he needed to improve on.
“There’s a lot of time to really be patient and reevaluate, restructure,” Poole tells Murdock. “You know what it is that you want to become, I guess. I really just sat down those couple of months and watched the film, looked at everything, looked at playoff basketball to see what that was like, ask questions.”
Now, Poole seems to have reaped the rewards from all the determination and work ethic he put in the past couple of years. If he keeps this up, the sky is the limit for the 22-year-old.
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Warriors’ Steve Kerr Warns Promising Star to Be Cautious with Teammate’s Approach