Jordan Poole’s cat-like tendencies can be traced to when Warriors guard was a young pup

SAN FRANCISCO — For the life of her, Jordan Poole’s mother cannot explain her son’s cat fancy. All she knows is they are a pet-friendly family. Have been since the kids were little. But with all the weekends on the road with AAU hoops, they couldn’t get dogs. So they opted for cats, a lower-maintenance furry affection. And Poole was immediately enamored.

“And when I tell you he fell in love with cats,” Monet Poole said. “He loves his cats. … And he’s got some pretty cats too.”

Perhaps there is something to the ailurophile in Poole, something that reveals a bit of his character, which informs his basketball sensibilities and shapes his game. Perhaps his fascination with cats is somehow connected to his appreciation for speed and quickness. Maybe he fell for cats and grew to respect their rapidity. Or maybe his inherent affinity for speed is the unspoken lure to cats. Either way, that appreciation has been the foundation of his game and the strength of his attack.

Quickness, Poole lives by it. Speed was always his superpower on the court. His origin in basketball was being undersized and limited athletically. He wasn’t super tall or leaping over everyone. But he always had a cat-like quickness that gave him an advantage. It’s how he got that blazing first step and the shiftiness that gets him to the rim regularly. And it’s going to be a major factor in whether the Warriors reach the NBA Finals. 

The special dimension of these Warriors is Poole’s ability to penetrate. Next to Stephen Curry, it has proven to be a critical weapon. With the expectation that Dallas is going to again swarm Curry with defenders, Poole becomes the counter for the Warriors’ offense. His ability to beat his man off the dribble, get into the lane and finish at the rim, gives Golden State a second player who can break down the defense. He can be standing at the top of the key, dribbling, lulling his defender to sleep. Then suddenly, he’s at the rim.

At 10 minutes, 10 seconds of the fourth quarter in Game 3 against Memphis, Poole is out near the half-court logo. Grizzlies guard Tyus Jones is in front of him, and he’s backed up by Jaren Jackson Jr. at the free-throw line. Poole blows by Jones and speeds past Jackson. Two seconds (and two dribbles) later, the ball is falling out of the net after an uncontested dunk by Poole.

No doubt, Poole is a shooter, and that is a critical element. But his penetration sets him apart as an offensive option against defenses determined to take away the Warriors’ 3s. It’s his ability to beat defenders off the dribble and collapse the defense or score on his own that gives him a chance to be effective even when the shot isn’t falling. And he’s becoming even better at it with time and experience. The Mavericks don’t have a big man at the rim, nor many defenders to throw at Poole. So another big series from him to start could force Dallas to ease up off Curry. Or pay the price.

Thus, when delving into the essence of Poole, the inspiration that feeds his rising star, his love of cats, could end up propelling the Warriors to another NBA Finals.

“Kota, he’s the OG,” Poole said of his 5-year-old Maine Coon, who with his brother Kai was adopted by Poole in 2019 when arrived in San Francisco. “He’s a vet. He’s been through it. He’s got all the experience. My young one, Toast, has more of the speed dynamic. He’s fast. But he’s young.”

He isn’t saying it, but you just know it’s a wink to the old-and-young dynamic of the Warriors. Kota is the vets he’s rolling with now, the grizzled and wily Hall of Famers on which this era is built. The young, fast one? That’s him. Toast. Which is exactly how Poole has been leaving defenders.

Kevon Looney earned his postseason stripes defending guards. In the 2018 Western Conference finals, against the isolation-heavy Rockets, Looney made a name for himself by holding his own defending Houston’s dynamic backcourt. The Warriors’ switch-everything scheme survived because Looney could handle being stuck on the perimeter with James Harden or Chris Paul.

Those hard lessons taught him to learn tendencies, anticipate moves. He can read how guards attack and at least devise a plan of how to make life a little harder. But when this rookie out of Michigan showed up for training camp in 2019, Looney was somehow puzzled at what to do with him. And since he also was from Milwaukee, Looney would not give him the satisfaction of admitting that.

“I never figured out a formula for how to guard him,” Looney said. “He was so damn fast with that first step. So I just fouled him. He’s on that star level when it comes to getting separation. You know, that level of Steph, Kyrie. When he changes pace, it’s tough.”

It wasn’t until last year that Poole realized he had a first step worth mastering. He knew early on he was quick, and his acceleration was often unmatched. Playing pickup with bigger players, fast was all he had. He wished he could dunk. He wanted badly to explode around, over and through people.

He used to watch videos of the blazingly fast players. Derrick Rose. John Wall. Kyrie Irving.

“The Mississippi Missile,” Poole said of former Warriors player Monte Ellis. “I did my homework. He was super fast. He was athletic too.”

That just wasn’t his game. He had to be crafty, leverage his speed and his shooting. His upbringing in basketball came at the end of the streetball era. The allure of excessive dribbling and crossing over defenders was passé. Instead, they would play one-on-one games with a three-dribble maximum. Sometimes two. It’s harder to get your shot off when the defender knows you only have three dribbles. But Poole was fast enough to use his allotment to get to the rim. He didn’t know it yet, but he was working on that first step. He would think if I can get by you in one dribble, then one more dribble and I’ve got a layup.

He’d heard about his first step early on. When he was about 10 years old, he remembers his AAU coach telling his father about it. The ear-hustling Poole heard the coach raving about his first step and how once he learned how to kick into another gear, he’d be an even more difficult guard.

Poole wasn’t truly sure what that meant. But it did bolster his confidence in his speed. Also, that wasn’t the first time he’d heard about another gear.

“When he played football,” Monet said, “Jordan was a quarterback. And there was a situation where he caught the ball and was headed for a touchdown. But the coach pulled him to the side and he says, ‘Poole, you’ve got to use your second gear. You’re never gonna make it if you don’t learn to kick it into high gear.’ ”

He built his game off the combination of his speed and shooting. The younger Poole knew when he drove, it had to be a legit blow-by. Winning wasn’t enough because a good defender could still block him. He had to get out ahead enough to get the layup off. He started developing his layup package so he could prevent those blocks on those times his defender wasn’t completely burnt. He learned early how to use the rim to his advantage, getting to the other side, spinning and scooping in the reverse, using either hand. These were basketball survival skills.

Then to that, he added the jab step. If the defender respected his quickness enough to bite, it created the rare time he got an open look. He had to take those. And had to make them. If the defender didn’t bite on the jab, he knew to drive with the next move.

Along the way, he developed his handle to expand his repertoire. The streetball influence wasn’t completely gone. He created sequences of moves to pull out against a variety of defenses. The snatch-back crossover could either lead into a pull-up or another change of direction. The jerky hesitation. The full-speed drive into a slow Euro step. His in-and-out dribble is deadly. He fakes a crossover going to his left, even leaning a bit to sell it, before curling the ball back out to the right and exploding into that first step.

His mother always told him the goal is to put the ball in the basket. However you need to do that, you do it. Her drilling that in his head is why he’s such a good free-throw shooter. They’d discuss the games over dinner, and she’d be dumbfounded at the idea of missing free throws.

“I’m like, it doesn’t even make sense,” she said. “You can hit all these 3-pointers, right? Jordan, there’s nobody even holding you. So there’s no reason that you should ever miss a free throw. Like ever. It doesn’t make sense. … The whole purpose, by any means necessary, anything that you can do, just get the ball in the basket. Because, you know, when kids are younger they’re trying all these crafty things. No, the goal of the game is just to get the ball in the basket. Period.”

When he got to Michigan, he’d love the challenge of trying his packages against better defenders, such as Charles Matthews, a 6-foot-6 guard out of Chicago. And Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman, a 6-foot-4 guard out of Allentown, Pa. And Zavier Simpson, a strong and quick 6-footer from Lima, Ohio. But he wasn’t beating them with his first step. That version of Poole was pulling out the moves to gain the advantage.

That’s who he was when he got to the Warriors. His ability to penetrate was clear from the beginning. The rookie Poole would get to the rim relatively easily in scrimmages. He’d try his skills against Eric Paschall and Glenn Robinson III — and, eventually, Andrew Wiggins when the Warriors acquired him — with the belief that if he could beat bigger, more athletic players, he could beat anybody.

But at that point, speed was his problem.

“It was just a matter of time for him to feel comfortable,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “Getting to the rim in games with the speed of the game, the intensity, that’s different from obviously a scrimmage and practice. It’s the old adage about, you know, the game has to slow down.

“For players, it’s the best way to describe it. I would say in the middle of last season, maybe after he came back from Orlando (in the G League bubble), he was more comfortable and more confident. The game slowed down, and he was able to get to his spots.”

The key element he added while in the G League, as he explains it, was confidence. The question when he returned was whether he was comfortable enough with his moves, his preparation, his decision-making, to operate the same way in the NBA. Was he sure enough to not be hurried? Was he under control enough to execute what he worked on? Was he thinking it through enough to play the cat-and-mouse game of beating NBA defenses?

The differences are minuscule at the NBA level. A half a second here. An inch there. A blink of lost focus. A modicum of refinement. Greatness exists in those margins. The growth in Poole is in capturing those. It’s being poised enough to make the stepback jumper to set up the drive later. Because the defender thinks, “I’m probably not gonna take that stepback because his coach won’t let him take it, and neither is my coach.” But if he takes it and shows he can make it, now the defender has to honor it. And “now I can drive past him. It’s that small of a difference.”

Poole’s first step creates those windows of opportunity. It’s those extra tenths of a second that determines a layup or a block. Or it’s the leaning the defender does trying to prepare for it that sets up the jumper or the sudden change of direction. That’s what Poole started learning to master. The playoffs have shown him the value of refinement.

Defenders are much more detailed-oriented in the postseason. They focus on tendencies and hone in to take away strengths. He could hear the Memphis players reminding whoever was guarding him to “watch for that in-and-out.”

In two series now, Poole has seen defenses get more physical with hopes of taking away his room to operate. He sometimes responds by dribbling more, which can get him into trouble. But the growth comes in taking his time and being efficient with his moves.

Leaning into the strength of his quickness, Poole changed his diet. He believes feeling lighter makes him move faster. He even gave up his mom’s beloved pasta. Monet loves some pasta. It’s the indulgence she can’t shake. As a family, they eat fairly healthy already. Limit the red meat and fried fare. But she still will throw down some pasta. Poole only rocks with the chickpea pasta, though. He still eats his favorite mom-cooked meal: turkey chili.

But speed is a mindset. Quickness is a talent to be cultivated. That included getting even stronger. Poole worked on his core, his balance, his footwork — all to maximize the might of his greatest asset. It’s been a huge factor in getting the Warriors through the first two rounds of the playoffs.

“That’s more so strength training and stuff you do off the court,” he said. “Having quick feet, good footwork. You can a fast step, but if your footwork fails, then it’s kind of holding you back. It’s working on explosion, balance.

“But now that my conditioning is pretty elite, and I’m faster, and I can dribble the ball. I can kind of do whatever I want.”

Now the Warriors need it against Dallas. They need his pace to speed up, or blow past, the methodical Mavericks. They need that first step of his to win his one-on-one matchups. Since Dallas doesn’t have a shot blocker anchoring its defense, Poole’s crafty finishing could pay off. At some point, the Warriors will want to make Luka Dončić work on defense. That will likely mean getting him matched up against Poole.

If he does it well enough, he could force the Mavericks to adjust their scheme, just as Denver and Memphis did. That’s usually a good sign for the Warriors because that’s less attention on the Warriors’ best player. In the last three games of the previous series, he struggled under the increased attention. But the job was done as Curry and Thompson felt the release of pressure.

“I like that. It’s exciting,” Poole said, “especially coming from when I wasn’t on the scouting report. Now it’s like, ‘Oh y’all really got to try your hardest to stop me.’ We’re going to see if it works. It probably won’t. But knowing that everybody is out there like, ‘We got to stay locked in and stay focused on him.’ Because it’s players out there they’re like, ‘All right, we’ve got to let them beat us.’ I guess I can’t be one of those guys. And that’s cool. Because now I know I’m getting your best punch. And now if I get going, and I know that you’re giving me your best punch, it’s bad news for you. No bueno.”

He’s not being catty when he says that. Just him recognizing how quickly he’s gotten to this level.

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(Top photo of Jordan Poole: Cary Edmondson / USA Today)