Jordan Poole Warriors vs Pelicans Chase Center game, Digi Mart USA News: The Golden State Warriors wrap up their six-game homestand tonight against the New Orleans Pelicans, which means Jordan Poole is back at Chase Center wearing a New Orleans jersey. He is not on the Pelicans’ injury report, but he sat the entire game in Los Angeles on Sunday with a coach’s decision DNP.
Poole has played four games all season, averaging six points on 19 percent shooting. The two-timelines plan once had Poole, James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga as the Warriors’ future, growing up alongside Steph Curry and Draymond Green.
All three are now gone. Wiseman is getting about five minutes a night as a backup center in New York, and Kuminga is starting in Minnesota and scoring 12.3 points per game.
Poole is in the final year of the $123 million extension Golden State gave him. He scored 17 a night during the 2022 championship run, and Steve Kerr said when Poole returned to face Golden State with Washington: “We don’t win that championship without him,” he told ESPN.
The current focus in Golden State is rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, a 6-foot-9 rookie who is pulling up off the dribble, crashing the glass and leading fast breaks. On Nov. 1 he scored 37 points against the Clippers at Chase Center with Curry resting, the most by a Warriors rookie since Curry scored 42 in 2010.
Nine games in, the No. 11 pick is averaging 21.0 points and 7.1 rebounds per game.
On May 14, 2021, with Curry also sitting out, a third-year Poole scored a then-career-high 38 points against New Orleans at Chase Center. Lendeborg and Poole both played at Michigan, with Poole helping the Wolverines reach the 2018 national title game and Lendeborg helping them win the 2026 title.
Brandin Podziemski, who received a five-year, $110 million extension last month, has said he sees himself as a future leader of the franchise. He told The Athletic last year that when Curry and Green leave, “they got to leave it with somebody.” Green advised him at the time to be careful saying that out loud.
Moses Moody, the one young player from that “two timelines” era still on the roster, is recovering from patellar tendon surgery and is not expected back until at least December. For tonight, the Warriors have won seven straight after an 0-3 start, the first team to do so since the 1950-51 Boston Celtics.
Curry scored 41 points in Saturday’s overtime win over Orlando at age 38.
The Pelicans are 4-6 and on the second night of a back-to-back after losing 139-123 to the Clippers, and New Orleans is without Yves Missi. Golden State will be without Jimmy Butler, Moody, Will Richard and Kristaps Porzingis, with Gui Santos probable, per the official injury report.
Tip-off is at 7 p.m.
