Warriors give Jordan Poole fake trophy before preseason game
After Draymond Green punched him during a practice last week, the Golden State Warriors' players and coaches have lined up to defend Jordan Poole. Green apologized yesterday, but he and the organization still need to make things right with Poole. Which explains what happened tonight before the Warriors' preseason game against the Los Angeles Lakers.
After Poole had the highest free throw percentage in the NBA last season, the Warriors honored him with a small trophy. Poole made 92.5% of his shots from the charity stripe last year, just edging out the second-place finisher. That was the guy who handed him the trophy, Steph Curry, who made 92.3% of his foul shots. The two had a friendly rivalry all last season over free throw shooting, with Poole passing the injured Curry by making all four of his freebies in the final game of the season.
"Me and Steph talked about it at the beginning of the year, and one of my goals was to shoot 90 (percent). So being able to have the best free throw shooter in the gym every day with me...it's pretty awesome," said Poole, after passing Curry,
As far as we can tell, it's the first time a team has commissioned a trophy for the free throw percentage leader. Clearly if Curry wins his fifth percentage title next year, he'll expect his own hardware next fall.
In the actual game, Poole again barely beat out Curry, this time for the team-high in points, scoring 25 points in 23 minutes, while Curry scored 24 in 25 minutes, as the Warriors lost to the Lakers, 124-121.
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