Klay Thompson was apparently one of many Golden State Warriors players who wasn’t too sad about the front office trading Jordan Poole to the Washington Wizards.
Observers found it odd that the Warriors, a team with a seemingly established backcourt that needs to get younger and not older, would acquire 38-year-old Chris Paul out of nowhere.
As it turns out, though – it is increasingly looking like the move was made because the dynamic within Golden State’s locker room was growing untenable.
And Poole was a big reason why, as head coach Steve Kerr alluded to with his recent comments.
During a recent appearance on Bill Simmons’ podcast, NBA insider Logan Murdock revealed that Poole didn’t have many friends on the Warriors.
“All the established guys had some version of a problem with Jordan Poole,” he continued.
“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?'”
That being, Poole did have a couple of friends on the Warriors.
“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.”
The poor relationship between Green and Poole is a matter of public record. Ditto as it pertains to Poole’s broken dynamic with Thompson.
It’s amazing what a difference 13 pounds makes. Chet looks huge. https://t.co/es1irCp5ny
— Game 7 (@game7__) July 3, 2023
But perhaps nobody quite understood the extent to which things were messed up in Golden State last year.
How much that was or wasn’t to blame for the team’s lack of playoff success in 2022-23 is unclear.
Will Thompson, Poole and the Warriors all come out stronger in 2023-24 now that they don’t have to deal with each other going forward? One way or another, an answer will emerge soon enough.
Related: Is A Big 3-Team Damian Lillard Trade Brewing?
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
