One of these games, ONE OF THESE GAMES, Jordan Poole is going to totally break out and start making all the crazy shots that he’s taking. This game doesn’t count; 20 points on 10 shots is wildly efficient for him, but it’s still a bit low on the pointage to qualify as a true breakout game. What I’m thinking of is like 35 points on 10-for-15 shooting with 7 threes. I feel like a game like that for Poole is just around the corner.
He has such a nice looking jumper. So nice that he’s an early candidate for the “Best Looking Jumper That Never Goes In” award. Following the in the footsteps of such cruddy-but-beautiful players like Jake Layman (though his eventually started going in) and Ben McLemore. This is not a good award to win, obviously. But that nice looking jumper is the reason I’m so confident in his scoring abilities going forward.
For now, I’ll settle for the 20 points with 5 threes (and a bunch of free throws). A game like this is a good first step in getting his non-free-throw shooting percentages up from “actually, truly, really historically awful” to “almost kinda acceptable from a rookie but not really”.