Washington Wizards continued their horrid season as they lost 97-109 against the Memphis Grizzlies which were without all their designated starters. The Wizards’ defense was dominated by a player who was in the G-League just a couple of months ago, Trey Jemison, who led the Grizzlies with 27 points and six rebounds. During the loss, Jordan Poole had an abysmal shooting night, which has become a familiar pattern.
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He shot a horrible 4/11 for 10 points, marking the third straight game where the guard couldn’t even shoot 40%. Considering his never-ending struggles during his first season with the Washington Wizards, a Redditor named ‘BurnieTheBrony’ compared Poole’s 2023-24 salary with the combined sum of the Grizzlies’ active roster during their Wizards win.
Jordan Poole is currently in the first year of a four-year, $128 million contract extension he signed with his previous team, the Golden State Warriors. For the current season, Poole is making $27,455,357. Meanwhile, if we combine the salaries of the Grizzlies’ active players in the win against the Wizard, the value may be less than $25 million.
Grizzlies’ guard Luke Kennard who had 13 points and eight assists has the highest contract of $14,763,636. Meanwhile, John Konchar, Santi Aldama, GG Jackson, and Jake LaRavia have contracts in the $2 million to $3.3 million annual range. The game’s leading scorer Trey Jemison is on a two-way contract that costs less than $ 1 million. Like Jemison, Jordan Goodwin is on a two-way and is also on an under $1 million deal.
Meanwhile, Wenyen Gabriel and DeJon Jarreau are on a ten-day deal that is less than $1 million. Some of these $1 million deals are non-guaranteed and can often be less than $500,000. Therefore, the Redditor’s stipulation about Poole’s singular contract value eclipsing the rest of the Grizzlies’ active roster isn’t far off. At any rate, the former Warriors guard has been in the crosshairs of fans and experts alike for all of the season.
Jordan Poole is having an underwhelming season
For the season, Jordan Poole is putting up 16.4 points, 3.8 assists, 2.4 rebounds, and 1.1 steals per game. He has shot 40.5% from the field and has made 2.2 triples per game on 31.6%. While these numbers aren’t shabby, they are a huge drop-off from his last two seasons.
Last season, the volume shooter put up 20.4 points a game on 43% shooting. However, that was with a Warriors team that already had immense offensive talent and Poole didn’t have the complete keys to the offense.
So, when he came to the Wizards and had the license to be the offensive leader, a huge boost in scoring was expected. But surprisingly, his usage percentage of 26 is less than last season when it was 29.1%. Apart from that, his regular shooting inconsistencies and sloppy play also irked NBA fandom. It implies that JP may need a viable scoring guard alongside him to be more effective.
In the wake of his shooting struggles, some of his preseason hype-builders have backtracked. In fact, just a month into the 2023-24 season, Kevin Garnett, who was expecting a post-Thunder Hardenesque turnaround from JP, declared that he doesn’t even belong in the league.
