The Warriors released Jonathan Kuminga from bench purgatory Friday night in New Orleans, and he spent 38 minutes making a compelling statement for more playing time.
JK will get his wish, coach Steve Kerr says, but it wouldn’t matter as much as it should. He’s not the guy who can fill their most urgent need.
That’s Jordan Poole.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Poole’s proficiency is essential to repairing a second unit that has stumbled through the first 10 games. He’s the dynamic catalyst, the primary ball-handler, the most consistent scorer. We can speculate all season on what might be behind his inconsistency, but that won't change the fact that he’s best suited to pull that group from the muck.
He didn’t do much pulling for Golden State’s B team – minus Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson and Andrew Wiggins – in a 114-105 loss to the Pelicans at Smoothie King Center.
Poole scored a team-high 20 points but shot 5-of-18 (27.8 percent) from the field while the other four starters shot a collective 63.6 percent. His game-high nine assists were neutralized by his game-high five turnovers.
“He’s trying too hard,” Kerr said. “Jordan is trying too hard to create every play. He’s at his best when there’s a flow to the game, he’s playing on and off the ball, getting some catch-and-shoot opportunities.
Golden State Warriors
Find the latest Golden State Warriors news, highlights, analysis and more with NBC Sports Bay Area and California.
And it’s not a one-game phenomenon. Poole is shooting 30.0 percent from the field over his last three games, including 22.7 percent from distance. He has more turnovers (14) than assists (13).
After a five-game stretch during which Poole played very well, at times exquisitely, he’s run aground. He’s over dribbling, under defending and thoroughly betraying his prodigious skills.
“The NBA is filled with the greatest athletes on earth,” Kerr said. “Trying to dribble through those athletes time and again is not going to be a winning formula. Ball movement is crucial to trying to win at this level.
“That’s Jordan, that’s for Steph, that’s for Klay, that’s for Draymond. And that’s the way we’ve always played.”
Less dribbling, more passing. If that feels like a message intended mostly for JP, it most certainly is. And Kerr was not finished.
“The ball’s got to move,” he said. “You’ve got to trust the pass to put the defense in a tough spot where now all of a sudden the defense is trying to recover and you’re attacking closeouts and a disjointed defense rather than attacking one guy one-on-one, with four guys standing behind him in a shell drill. And that’s what we’re looking at a lot. So, we’ve got to soften up the defense by moving the ball and getting better rhythm to our offense.”
Yet Poole’s most glaring transgression against the Pelicans came on defense.
Early in the second quarter, he launched a 3-pointer while being disrupted by pesky Jose Alvarado. The shot missed, but what burned the Warriors was Poole’s failure to get back on defense. Alvarado did, and he was rewarded with a wide-open 3-point missile that prompted Kerr to call time out before the ball dropped through the net.
Given Warriors’ defensive woes this season, their leader can’t afford to be that careless on a night when Curry, Green, Thompson and Wiggins are watching from the bench. Particularly when defense is the facet most often cited by the coaching staff as an area where Poole needs to improve.
The Warriors have high expectations of JP, based on his performance last season and in the postseason, and his play thus far has been wildly inconsistent.
RELATED: Kerr has idea how he will adjust Warriors' rotations
Even with a five-game losing streak and 3-7 record, Golden State’s starting five has been solid. It’s when the bench is summoned, with Poole as its leader, that things have gone haywire.
Kuminga’s energy could provide a boost, as could an improved James Wiseman and the floor-stretching ability of a JaMychal Green still in search of his 3-ball.
But effectiveness of that unit will be dictated mostly by JP. He sets the tempo. If he continues to struggle, so will it.