Honorary Warrior For Life, Jordan Poole?

end of an era

The master list of Honorary Warriors For Life lists everyone already polled.

Introducing Honorary Warriors For Life

The concept is simple. You get to vote on the question “Is X an Honorary Warrior For Life?”

What does that phrase mean? I once tried to define it, and people found it more fun to bring in their own definitions, so it is now back to being kept vague, like “Most Valuable Player” or “Greatest Of All Time” or “sandwich” or “chair”.

You can vote at the poll at the end of the article or at Twitter, or in the comments. Comment votes count as 10 normal poll votes.

The Nominee: Jordan Poole

This poll probably will need to be re-run in a year, after Poole has had a chance to complete a major Friends-To-Enemies story arc. For now, Poole remains a tantalizing talent who played a crucial role in the 2022 Playoffs, and then stalled out in 2022-23, probably partly because of team stress caused by Draymond’s punch.

Let’s celebrate Poole’s huge contributions. Jordan Poole had a record-setting playoff debut in 2022 as starting point guard and offensive engine while Steph Curry tried to speed-run his foot recovery.

• JP's historic playoff start puts him in company with Wilt

Poole made some of the most memorable shots of the 2022 Finals:

NBA @NBA

A big momentum swing. Jordan Poole’s 3rd quarter buzzer-beater to take the lead was a crucial part of the @warriors Game 5 win! #PhantomCam

This huge shot put a stop to the last ditch Celtics comeback that threatened to steal pivotal Game 5. Then he also played a big role in the championship winning 21-0 run in Game 6, hitting two massive threes.

If I had written this article in April 2021, almost everyone would have declared Jordan Poole a confirmed bust. At the time, Poole had struggled through 1+ years of very inefficient play (statistically near the worst in the league) and had been sent to the G-League to get reps and his confidence back. The pick was near universally regarded as a failure and the more whiny fans took it as a fireable offense by Bob Myers.

At the end of the 2020-21 season, Poole showed signs of life in the ending 15-5 run and played fearlessly in the Play-In Games. Poole finally exploded in 2021-22 and was a leading candidate for Most Improved Player. Suddenly, he was the steal of the 2019 draft. In the last couple of months of the season, he showed he could be the micro-Steph-Curry on an okay team. The question was, could he produce against playoff-quality defenses and hold up against getting picked on by offenses?

On the championship Warriors team, he was the only player besides Steph Curry who could manufacture shots off the dribble. And he could also slot in beside Steph in lineups for extra scoring punch. He persevered and found multiple ways to contribute despite being hunted and game-planned.

His record-setting debut against the Denver Nuggets was the perfect way to get his confidence, with him pouring in points against a so-so defense who just couldn’t stop him nor block his shot at the rim. The Poole Party got a lot of hype until DEN put Aaron Gordon on Poole and clamped him.

Things got a lot harder in the Grizzlies series after Ja Morant got injured (due supposedly to the power of Jordan Poole’s pinky… Taylor Jenkins didn’t accuse him, he was just curious) where everyone had trouble with the long, athletic, switchy defenders and the aggressive shot blocking. But Poole continued to play an important role driving the non-Curry minutes and sometimes crunch time.

In the end, Poole averaged 17 / 3.8 / 2.8 in the playoffs as essentially the Sixth Man, and in the Finals, he bounced back from getting every shot blocked off his head for the first half of the series to finding ways to be a microwave scorer in short minutes and hitting numerous key shots.

That was the peak of the Jordan Poole Era, but that’s a peak that every team in the league would love to have. And for that, I certainly consider Jordan Poole an Honorary Warrior For Life.

This last year, Poole took a step back. I’m not assigning any specific blame, just laying out the facts. His peak plays were still dazzling, but his efficiency dropped and his defensive intensity and precision did not improve. He was attacked in the playoffs on defense and bodied by bigger defenders, and the Warriors best lineups did not include him. He continued to have tension with Draymond and disruptive dissatisfaction over his role. It was reported that Steph Curry had to make a rare team speech before Kings Game 7 exhorting everyone but especially Poole to buy into his role for the good of the team. I’ll skip over the other widespread rumors of other tensions Poole had with his teammates.

In the end, even though many in the organization believed in Poole’s talent and work ethic, it seemed to come down to a choice between Poole and either Klay or Draymond, both financially and emotionally.

Your Vote

Vote in the embedded Substack poll below, or in the comments. Comment votes count as 10 normal poll votes.

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