Jordan Poole’s future with Wizards already on shaky ground?

May 2, 2023; San Francisco, California, USA; Golden State Warriors guard Jordan Poole (3) warms up before the start of game one of the 2023 NBA playoffs against the Los Angeles Lakers at the Chase Center. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

At this point, it looks like neither Draymond Green nor Jordan Poole is winning the breakup.

Veteran NBA writer Marc Stein cast some doubt on Poole’s future with the Washington Wizards in a post to his Substack page this week. Stein wrote that he gets the sense from “various league observers” that Washington views Poole as a more of an opportunity to rebuild his value for use in a future trade rather than as a true cornerstone player to build around.

The Wizards just acquired the 24-year-old Poole from Golden State as part of the Chris Paul trade last summer (with Paul having been the foundational piece of Washington’s return from the Bradley Beal trade with Phoenix). But through just the Wizards’ first 11 games of the season, Poole is emphatically proving that he is not that guy. Despite a featured role on offense, Poole is averaging 16.2 points a game (lower than he averaged as an auxiliary option in Golden State), and his efficiency is in the toilet with 41/30/79 shooting splits. The ex-Michigan star is even taking a backseat to Kyle Kuzma in the offense, and Washington overall is just 2-9 with that duo running the show.

Compounding matters for the Wizards is that Poole may be immensely hard to move since he is only in the first year of a four-year, $128 million woolly mammoth of a contract. With Poole having more lowlights in Washington than highlights at this point, the team’s only hope may be that he can go on a lengthy enough hot streak that it convinces somebody else to take him off their hands.