It was clear that the relationship between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole was a fractured one after the former infamously punched the latter during practice last year.
It turns out, though, that Draymond wasn’t the only one on the Golden State Warriors who had some issues with Poole. Logan Murdock of The Ringer revealed on The Bill Simmons Podcast that Poole had very few allies on the team, and multiple veterans had a problem with him.
“A lot of the times he was isolated from the group right,” Murdock said. “He had allies on the team, Andrew Wiggins was an ally on the team, (Kevon) Looney, who they both are from Milwaukee was a guy that liked Jordan.”
“All the established guys had some version of a problem with Jordan Poole,” Murdock added. “Whether it was Klay (Thompson) ironically saying that Jordan doesn’t pass the ball enough and shoots too much. And then you have Draymond, who sees Jordan as this guy, is like: ‘Yeah, I did punch him. I did do all these things, but now I don’t have a voice within the locker room because of what happened just now.’ And he has spoken about that on his podcast. And then you have Steph (Curry) who was like trying to bring all of this together and was like, ‘Man, I am behind you Jordan, can you just get right so we can win?'”
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Murdock stated that Stephen Curry really wanted things to work out and it explains why he did state that it was tough for him to see Poole go. Ultimately though, the situation was just too far gone with the other veterans. The trade also caught Poole by surprise, as per Murdock, as he was expecting to be on the team next season.
A Fresh Start Was Really Needed For All Parties
The Warriors denied for the whole 2022-23 season that the punch was impacting the team, but after the season ended, head coach Steve Kerr admitted some trust was lost. That just isn’t something that comes back easily and when you factor in that the likes of Klay Thompson had issues with Poole as well, you really understand why they traded him.
With that dark cloud lifted, the Warriors can now just focus on the task at hand, which is competing for a title in 2023-24. For Poole, he goes to a team where he gets a bigger role and where he isn’t disliked by his teammates.
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