A post recently went viral on social media that claimed Steve Kerr urged Jordan Poole to "stand up" to Draymond Green, which ultimately led to the infamous punch incident during the Warriors' practice in October 2022. Draymond Green saw a post that aggregated this viral post's claims, and he decided to call it out on Threads.
This information reached Richard Jefferson, the former NBA champion, who hinted that Green may have been justified in doing what he did. On the most recent episode of the 'Road Trippin' podcast, Jefferson spoke his mind on Jordan Poole in response to this incident.
"This is what I would say personally…This is what two, three years removed? So, we haven't heard much from Jordan Poole about the situation. We heard from Draymond, but everybody's got their own version of the story, and then there's the truth, right? Everybody's got their own version. And you're no longer teammates; you were champions together."
"I think we've seen Draymond continue to navigate some of his frustration on the court in other ways, and we've seen Jordan Poole act out of pocket on a basketball court. That should be checked."
"Even when he's with the Wizards, some of the things that he was doing on the court and his behavior are the behavior of a basketball player that needs to be checked, right? Talented player, NBA champion, no question… But on the Wizards, we've seen some of the shots, some of the f***ery, some of the attitude. We've seen that, right?"
"And people are like, "Oh, well, this was with Draymond." And it's like again, I don't know Jordan Poole in that space, no disrespect, but we could see there's a level of like, ‘hey Jordan, we got to clean this up.’ You're a talented player. You can be an All-Star, but you also have to be a leader first, right?"
"And we've seen Draymond struggle. So, the fact that we have even seen behavior from both of them over the two years after they weren't teammates would suggest that a clash was very, very easy."
"So, I don't know what the truth is. They both are going to have different versions. So that's the end of what I have about the entirety of the story."
While Green was likely only trying to refute Steve Kerr's involvement in the incident, Jefferson's comments indicate that he believes both players' personalities make them prone to clashing as teammates.
Jordan Poole's performance took a hit in his initial transition from the Warriors to the Wizards. Once primed to take over the franchise from Stephen Curry, Poole was all of a sudden leading the Wizards. His scoring took the biggest initial hit as he dropped from averaging 20.4 points per game in 2022-23 to 17.4 points per game in 2023-24.
However, Poole seems to have found his feet with the Wizards again last season as his scoring average went up to a career high of 20.5 points per game in the same usage rate.
Now he has been traded once again and is going to play for the Pelicans. He might take some time to get acclimated to the new environment, but as Jefferson said, if he finds a stable franchise and gets his act together, he can be a potential All-Star in the future.
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