Image via Alan Chazaro (Photography by Jordan Jimenez, aka Jsquared)
Dr. Dre’s The Chronic being listed as one of the best Bay Area rap albums is why Alan Chazaro doesn’t trust anything generated by AI.
Earlier this month, I watched Jordan Poole play basketball in person for the first time since 2022. As a hoops head, it may have been the best gift I could’ve asked for.
In the NBA’s annual Mexico City showcase, the leading scorer on the Washington Wizards dropped 21 with three dimes, two steals and two blocks in a loss to the Miami Heat. And on the following Monday night, he faced off against the Warriors for just the third time since he was exiled – leading his team with 24 points in another unsuccessful effort.
Prior to Mexico City, the last time I had seen him live was at Chase Center in San Francisco during the 2021-22 NBA regular season – right before he erupted for an epochal playoff run on the way to co-leading the Dubs to an unlikely championship against the supremely talented Boston Celtics.
It may as well have been two lifetimes ago. Shortly after becoming one of the league’s premier young scorers, Poole was punched in the face by Draymond Green during a team practice and unceremoniously traded away.
The way in which he was let go – not just by the team – but the Bay Area as a whole, is an embarrassment. For a player and person who brought so much on and off-court excitement to the region, Poole never received a proper bon voyage. And now, two seasons fully removed, it’s clearer than ever that what happened to him should never happen to anyone in a workplace. Not only was he the one to suffer the consequences, Poole was banished to one of the worst teams in the Association.
Watching Poole Party felt like a current of electricity being injected through your eyeballs. When he was cooking alongside his elder Splash Brothers, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, and flowing within Steve Kerr’s synchronized, eudaemonistic teachings, the shooting guard was veritably unstoppable.
Go back and rewatch the tapes. Though he could be unhinged at times – susceptible to the erratic passes, unnecessary shots, and careless turnovers of youth, especially in his horrible rookie season in 2019 – he became a magician during the Warriors 75th anniversary season. And in the 2022 playoffs, his offseason work paid off in real time. Without him, the Warriors wouldn’t have bagged their franchise’s sixth Larry O’Brien trophy.
In the first round of the playoffs, Poole absolutely pantsed the big, clunky, and comparatively slow-footed Denver Nuggets, who couldn’t match up with his twitch-reaction quickness. Poole followed that up in the next series against the smaller, quicker (and higher-seeded) Memphis Grizzlies. Here’s a recap of how that went for JP: a crapload of transition threes; off-ball cuts to the rim for crafty lay-ups; nifty spin moves; acrobatic reverses; streaking dashes for contested jams in the lane; Euro-steps off the bounce; angled floaters; speedy reroutes against an overwhelmed defense; pump fakes to get defenders in the air; side steps for silky splashes. Simply put, he was an unrelenting, offensive war machine.
Against the Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference Finals he finally cooled off. But he added what was needed, when necessary. My favorite Poolesian moment unfolded when he got the ball at the top of the three point arc while being defended by big man, Davis Bertans. He didn’t have a shot, nor an angle to maneuver. So he dribble-stepped and got stuck with the towering Bertans right up in his jersey. Rather than pass out of his predicament, Poole did a jab step forward and somehow slid under Bertans’ extended wingspan. Poole couldn’t go any further without being called for a double dribble violation, so he cleverly — and impossibly — lifted off his opposite foot and nailed an ultra deep, heavily contested two. It’s not a play that an average human biped could make, the kind of shot that only his predecessor, Steph, could seemingly pull off. Somehow, Poole had adopted his veteran leader’s magic and ostentatious boldness by osmosis. And it worked.
But Poole’s supernova moment really came into the Finals against the Celtics. Off the bench, his hot hand bailed the Warriors out of stalled actions more than once. Constantly running off ball a la Steph, he kept the stellar Boston defense off balance, and punished them with an onslaught of step back treys and slashing zags to the rim. In one instance, he faked out center Robert Williams by feigning in one direction then reversing mid-play for a weak side lay up. That is, he out-timed the “Time Lord” himself. In another, JP used his body weight and smaller size to keep All-NBA forward Jaylen Brown from getting in defensive position on his way to sinking a floater. An in-game announcer heralded one of Poole’s “triple step back” shots, as he peppered in highlights of shifty counter moves, corkscrews, and hitting back-to-back threes while his team trailed.
Here’s the thing: this all happened in Chase Center, not Oracle Arena (the team’s beloved, former site across the water in East Oakland, where the Warriors had already cemented their greatness behind Steph, Kevin Durant and a gang of future Hall of Famers years prior). Chase Center was a blank slate at that point and until then had mostly felt like an underwhelming disappointment for lifelong Warriors fans like myself. Dub Nation was starved for something to pin our pride on, to point to within the circus-inside-a-spaceship structure and declare “I was there when it happened.” And yes, I was there when Poole, as one of many sublime factors that summer, helped to propel the San Francisco-relocated squad to their first ever Chase Center trophy. I witnessed Poole, a man possessed with a demon that could only be exorcised by balling the holy ghost out of himself, become a Bay Area legend in that building. It’s a beautiful thing to re-watch, even two years later. And yet, there is a cloud hovering over that performance now, over that otherwise divine effort.
As someone who grew up loyal to my hometown Golden State Warriors with memories dating back to roughly 1995, I’ve seen decades of players get drafted to the team by the Bay. A few of them thrived into stardom — Jason Richardson, Monta Ellis, Steph, Klay, Dray — while the vast majority faded into obscurity after a season or two — Todd Fuller, Ike Diogo, Patrick O’Bryant, Anthony Randolph, Alen Smailagić. None of those drafted players (barring The Big Three, of course) have been as fun to watch, or as integral to a championship victory, as Jordan Poole was in 2022.
The way he jabbed, danced and split defenders all season long was reminiscent of jazz in motion – a free flowing jam session more reliant on spontaneous improv and determined self-assuredness than overwrought strategy or rigid fixation.
At his peak, Poole didn’t only just help the Warriors win games. He was also a walking basketball meme, and provided arguably the best NBA Twitter content for about 12 months (he popularized the idea of over-performing in front of baddies and provided more meme-able expressions than his spiritual predecessor, Michael Jordan).
Then just like that, it was all gone. Swept away by another man’s ego, and an organization’s inability to mend the fractures. I’ll never know the details of what occurred in those locker rooms and practice facilities (of course, there are rumors). But I’m not sure I need to: in any profession, seeing a veteran employee attack a newcomer just seems unacceptable for a workplace, including sports. And for it to be leaked publicly? Where is the honor of teammates and supposed brotherhood?
Like most Warriors fans, I haven’t kept up closely with Poole on the Wizards. But after floundering in the nation’s capital last season as the butt of one of the NBA’s biggest jokes (largely fueled by Kyle Kuzma’s mercurial being), Poole seems to be having a renaissance year thus far.
When the Mexico City Game ended, I watched from a court side media section as Poole walked off the floor with more swaggering energy and empathy for the local Mexican fans than any other player to see any action that night. He signed hella autographs on his way out and under his own volition, stopping to bless nearly every person who extended their items for his signature like a carefree rockstar exiting an arena. In contrast, the majority of players stepped straight past the Spanish-speaking cadre.
At one point, while making his way for the tunnel, Poole stopped, looked toward a roped off crowd of Mexican hoop enthusiasts shouting at him, and tossed the towel from his neck directly at a young dude who had been chanting Poole’s name. It happened right in front of me. The Gen Zer snatched it from the air, looked at his friend in disbelief, and, as any true Mexico City Chilango would emote, yelled “guey, no mames!” (roughly translated into “bro, stop f*cking around”). The kid saw me seeing him at that moment, and the look in his eyes was one of “this is the best moment of my life.”
Jordan Poole did that. It’s the same kind of feel good energy he used to provide as the Bay Area’s youngest Splash Brother — something we sadly, and inexplicably, lost.
