Pelicans are throwing a Poole Party in New Orleans

Former Warrior Jordan Poole is heading to the New Orleans Pelicans in a four-player deal with the Washington Wizards

The Golden State Warriors will be seeing more of their old friend Jordan Poole next season as a four-player deal sent the 2022 NBA champion back to the Western Conference.

Two years after the Warriors traded Poole, Patrick Baldwin, Jr., and guard Ryan Rollins to the Washington Wizards for Chris Paul to dump his entire four-year contract extension, the Wizards sent Poole and the two remaining years on his deal to the New Orleans Pelicans for CJ McCollum and Kelly Olynyk. The trade also sent Saddiq Bey to the Pelicans, another player with Warriors ties as part of the deal that sent James Wiseman to the Detroit Pistons and Gary Payton II back to the Dubs.

You could argue that this deal is the two teams choosing a single timeline for their futures. The Pelicans added two players in the same age range as Zion Williamson, Herbert Jones, and Trey Murphy III. The Wizards are going super-young, with four first-round picks from the 2024 draft and 20-year-old Bilal Coulibaly, and super-old with a group of veterans including McCollum, Khris Middleton, and Warriors franchise enemy Marcus Smart. But those veterans also represent nearly $100M in expiring contracts, giving the Wizards a massive amount of salary cap space for the summer of 2026.

The addition of Poole means the Pelicans are going to aim to score lots and lots of points next season. Poole was in a terrible situation with a rebuilding team that was trying to lose for the last two seasons. After a rough first season in D.C., he averaged 20.5 points last season on his most efficient shooting since the 2021-22 campaign with the Warriors. He’ll join Williamson and Murphy in what could be a very dynamic Pelicans offense that probably won’t stop anyone on defense, either.

But it’s a worthwhile gamble for a Pelicans teams that won 49 games in 2023-24 and were on their way to beating the Los Angeles Lakers in the 7-8 play-in game before Williamson went out with yet another injury. They’re effectively locked into the group of Williamson & Co. for the next two seasons, hopefully getting Dejounte Murray back from his Achilles tear by the end of next year. With Zion’s rough injury history meaning he’s undoubtedly missing 15-20 games at a minimum, the Pelicans need a pure bucket-getter like Poole more than most teams.

There’s also an argument that Poole is much better on a team with good three-point shooting, where there’s space for him to drive and shoot in the mid-range. The Pelicans were excellent in that area one season ago.

Of course, the biggest question still looms. With the Warriors now facing Poole’s team three-to-four times next season instead of just two, will Draymond Green try to fight Poole’s father? We may need to check our podcast feeds to learn that one.