You're tuned into Heat Check, But just a quick.
On this episode of the Heat Check, there's trouble.
There's trouble in Golden State with our Doves and David does fans just aren't ready to accept the truth about Jordan Poole.
So we talk about that.
I have some things I need to say, things I might have over over said last night in haste and in pain. As the Golden State Warriors cost me Golden Well, Jordan Poole cost me probably close to five hundred.
Dollars with not winning.
No, not close to exactly that amount. And so we talk about him, and we talk about Draymond Green and the lost tapes of his podcast in the wake of punching Jordan Poole in said face, which we now know there was an episode recorded that he did not publish. Uh yeah, there is al so an epidemic that is sweeping the NBA, and we check in on the official Timberwolve spokesperson, the pr REP as it were, Austin Rivers. I also bitch about the All Star voting because I mean,
I think it's terrible. All right, I'm heading out to Sacramento, Nick to see the Kings place.
Lebron James, so drop that generic gas beat.
Oh, Dubs fans, Dubbs fans, We're a fickle bunch, aren't we. If you criticize the Warriors even a little, no matter how legitimate those criticisms are, you could be in the DMS with the most rabid Dubs fan and they know what's up.
They tell you, Yeah, all my, all the homies hate Jordan Poole right now, they say that. But if you say that on social media, one you're a hater. Two you don't want to let this young man develop, and three they'll try to kick you off the Warriors fan bus. That's that's what makes the Dubs our Dubs. You know, you can't say a peep, cannot say one peep in the moments when people are legitimately fucking up and losing
games as a result of those fuck ups. And in my case, let's just tell you go back to the kitchen. You're not even a true Dubs fan. There was seventy one quote tweets. None of them were good on my Jordan Poole tweet last night. They were all some version of who are you? Why do I see you on my timeline? But I think we do need to kind of talk about our dubs a little bit. I mean, six and without Steph is fine. That's much better than
I thought I thought it was. This team would go three and seven, but our Dubs losing to the Pistons twice twice the Pistons. The Pistons has check notes eleven wins.
On the season. Two of those wins are against y'all.
Right, two of those eleven are again over twenty percent of those wins are against y'all. You lost to the Pacers twice as well. I like the Pacers, but come on, now, you lost to the Magic. I mean, these are the doldrums of the NBA that you should be feasting on, just stinking your teeth into to get easy wins, fatten up so that when you see the Miami Heat away, or you see the New York Knicks away, or whoever.
You could say, look, we're good.
We've just been destroying teams like the Pacers, the Magic, and the Pistons. So okay, I have to admit I had a lot of money riding on this Warrior's win. So when I got home, I did not go to bed, I did not watch the highlights. I did not look on my phone while I was watching the game, which may sound inconceivable to some. I was locked in to
every possession of that Warriors game. And I tell you what, there's nothing like the hate that you experience for Jordan Poole when your money and your livelihood depends on him not making bad decisions, because he made a lot of them last night, and he.
Made a lot of them against the Hawks. He made a lot of them against the Blazers.
These are three games straight where the decision making quality has been bananas. Like bananas zibbit a was last night. Everybody just wants to be sunshine and rainbows. They just want me to say, oh, it's gonna be. The only thing you can ever say about the Doves when they're losing is it's gonna be fine.
That's the only thing you can say.
It's gonna be fine, because it always is fine, and that's what they want to hear when things go bad.
But here is the reality of the situation. And I do think things will be fine because.
It's always fine with the Warriors. But we have a Jordan Poole problem, folks. Nobody wants to admit it, and yes.
Will he grow, Will he evolve? Will he develop?
Did stepf have problems like Jordan Pool where he was turning the ball over? Did Clay have problems where he was making sure? None of that right now is relevant at all. We're talking about criticizing the here and the now. Okay, like, what do I see? What is happening? What does it mean? What are the consequences of what I see? Right We're not We're not putting our crystal ball on. That's not what this job is.
This man has a lot of offensive responsibility, as we know.
But the issue for my guy, Jordan Poole JP for whatever reason that no, what he wants to talk about is the turnovers.
The turnovers.
There's other ones too, I mean, chucking just randomly. You know how much I love a heat check, Yeah, I mean it's the name of the pot. But Jordan Poole will heat check when he's ice cold and contested and defenders draped around him early on in the shot clock. But right now, what we're talking about is turnovers, which, by the way, Jordan Poole does more than anyone in the NBA. You didn't think you didn't think that was true? Yeah, more than any human being playing.
In the NBA right now. Jordan Poole worse than Trey Young. That is insane.
I know he's got to be aggressive. I know the ball's got to be in his hand. I know he has to get into traffic. He's got to get you into a place where there's lots of bodies around trying to poke the ball loose. But sometimes he's just throwing it to the other team on his own self, no issues.
He's making boneheaded mistakes in the crunch time, down the stretch, when you're down by one, when you have the Warriors just to win, and you watch Jordan Poole, it's like having a heart attack every possession.
I tell you what, it is, nothing like it. And maybe I wouldn't notice.
These things if the last leg of a six leg parlay wasn't on the line.
But it was.
And I'm focused now, and it's okay to admit it. It's okay, Draymond, It's okay, Steve Kerr, it's okay, Clay.
It's okay.
Anyone that's rooting for the Dubs pool right now is a flamethrower who makes some costly mistakes down the stretch.
It's okay. It's okay to admit that it loses you games.
It's okay to say, on one hand, he keeps us in games because he scores like crazy, but we don't know when he's gonna fuck up. And all I want from a player is to know what he's gonna be. Anthony Slater tweeted this out today. Jordan Poole has committed a dribbling turnover in the final minute of regulation in three straight tight games. Yeah, it finally costs the Warriors in a loss against the Pistons. The only reason that this hasn't been written about with the Hawks or the
Blazers is they won those games. Draymond Green had to make a three point shots in order to beat the Hawks. Are you are you joking me? What kind of world are we living in? And we're just gonna let that'sie. We had to have a Draymond Green prayer to get this dub folks. Folks, Jordan Poole is averaging five point one turnovers per game since Steph left. He had six last night alone. Six This man, Jordan Poole had fifty two turnovers in the ten games that Steph has missed,
and that is the most in the league. C J. Holmes, the Warriors Rider, points this out. This isn't a recent issue. Pool had an NBA high one hundred and thirty five turnovers entering play Wednesday, and was eighth in turnovers per game at three point six. This is a man who comes off the bench too. We're not talking about this stretch where he's playing without Steph.
Jordan.
Poole is committing three point six turnovers per game period off the bench. Poole has committed seven turnovers in clutch time, defined as the final five minutes of the game in which the scoring margin is no more than five points. I'd say pretty critical time to take care of the basketball.
But make that eight.
Now with six seconds left down one last night it was I don't even know what to say. He gave it to Clay, good job, Clay gives it back and he say, oh no, he drives right down. I don't even remember against too Alec Burks. It was Alec Burks dribbles the ball off his feet, trips over himself, throws the ball out of bounds and you are now fucked.
Thank god, somehow.
Clay ended up making an insane three point shot with almost no seconds to go, leaving you with one second and all of a sudden, you don't defend Sadiq Bay. Sidik Bay with one second left shoots three in your eyeball night night, sleep mask. I looked at my phone to say overtime. I was just texting someone to say overtime. Shame on me because I looked up and my jaw dropped because it said final what This is an issue? And it's not just an issue because the Warriors are
paying him thirty million dollars a year. It's it's an issue because this team wants to win now and they don't have the patience to wait for him to catch up and evolve and develop like Steph did. Do you know the difference between Jordan Poole and Steph Curry. There was no expectation to win a fucking thing when Steph Cree came into the league. None, zero, absolutely none. We had Monte Ellis. That's the one.
Monte Ellis.
Sometimes I want to say Monte Morris because he's the one playing right now.
He was in there.
There was multiple guards playing for the Warriors at that point in time where you didn't need Steph to be the guy at that moment, just like they don't need Pool to be the guy at this moment.
But listen, Steph's not there. You need to win. Joe lacub is.
Breathing down your necks saying that he will shed salary if this team is not a contender. They need to win now. They need to protect the ball, especially in crunch time. Every one of these wins is gonna be precious. Let's break down a couple of the recent games against the Hawks. Jordan Poole was eleven for thirty one, two for twelve from three seventeen misses from the left side of the court, including three corner threes, open ones too,
not contested ones, open ones. Oh, by the way, really quickly. He shot a corner three last night and did the staff thing where he turns before it goes in.
It did not go in.
It barely hit the fucking rim. So like, it's okay to be eleven for thirty one. If you're the central hub of the offense, sometimes you shoot poorly. He did end up with twenty eight points, but you can't have six turnovers if you're not shooting well.
You have to figure out a way to do your best.
Jalen Brunson impression. That's just what it is. Here's what he did in crunch time. He turned the ball over with twelve point one seconds left down too in regulation. Then he had a three pointer blocked by Murray that went straight to Dante, who tied the game with the three.
So that's the reason that they were able to go to overtime.
He misses a pull up three with forty seconds left in ot up one, they end up winning that game. It doesn't always work like that, as we saw against the Pistons, a critical turnover in the last four seconds of the Jazz game cost them a win that also wiped out and washed out an elite scoring performance last night. He was taking terrible threes early.
On in the shot clock.
You've got multiple guys who can you can facilitate it to move the ball around. You can't just take a thirty foot step back three, just terrible steph was visibly mad at that turnover, but then Clay, of course is Clay and says some nice things to give Jordan Poole an out and make him feel better about himself, because what do you get to do if you're his teammate right now? You're not gonna make him feel worse, are you?
You're not gonna make him feel less confident about this performance and him as a human being and as a basketball player. Of course, not because you want him to continue to produce. But this is what he said. I told him in the locker room that there's a reason that I threw him the ball because he's like that. He's a clutch player, he's a shot creator. We would have not been on this win streak without him.
I know that.
I mean, shoot, we all go through these lapses throughout our career. I remember missing two free throws against the Nuggets in my second year and just leaving the arena in my uniform. So it's like we all got to go through it. Steph went through it.
Jordan.
We're gonna continue to trust him with the ball in his hands because he's the engine that makes us go.
But it's not the misshots. It's not it's the it's the turnovers. It's the troubling, troubling turnovers.
Are they gonna have buyers regret on Jordan Poole and extending him for that much money so soon? Probably not, But listen, I understand you're gonna have to pay four hundred and fifty million dollars next year. If you keep them all, what are you gonna do? The longer it remains an issue, who knows.
Maybe a trade happens, Maybe our dubs struggle and continue to struggle.
At the end of the day, we know Steph will pull them out, figure out a way to get into the play end of the playoffs, and make a run.
That's what they do. We are the evil Empire.
But the longer they struggle, the less likely Lika will want to continue to carry this enormous, enormous peril.
So don't hate me. I'm just pointing out what I see from Jordan Poole right now. Like him, think he's a good player. Please don't call me a hater. The end