A Single Practice Punch and a $140 Million Trade: How the Warriors Lost Their Heir Apparent
The image is seared into the collective memory of the NBA: a leaked video from a Golden State Warriors practice in October 2022. Draymond Green, the team’s emotional heartbeat, winds up and delivers a vicious, unprovoked sucker punch to the jaw of a young Jordan Poole.
The fallout was immediate fines, internal investigations, and a fracture in the dynasty’s core that would never truly heal.
But according to former NBA All-Star Jeff Teague, the real damage wasn’t just a bruised jaw or a tense locker room.
It was the end of an era.
“Once Jordan Poole left and all that sh*t happened, it was over with,” Teague declared on the Club 520 Podcast.
“It was over with.”
Teague’s argument lands like a gut punch to Warriors management. In their rush to escape the drama and appease their veteran enforcer, Golden State didn’t just trade a talented guard.
They traded their future.
They traded the anointed heir to Klay Thompson’s throne and with him, their final realistic championship window.
Jeff Teague’s Verdict: The Dynasty Chose the Past Over the Future
Teague paints a vivid picture of what could have been.
“After that championship run, Jordan Poole was their next ‘Alright, we’re gonna mold.’ Obviously Steph’s gonna be here, but Jordan Poole was gonna be our next 25-point scorer. He was gonna replace Klay.”
In Teague’s telling, the Warriors had the succession plan perfectly laid out.
Stephen Curry as the eternal engine.
Jordan Poole as the high-volume scorer.
A seamless transition from one Splash Brother era to the next.
Instead, panic set in.
In the summer of 2023, Golden State shipped Poole to Washington for Chris Paul, a move now widely viewed as a desperate salvage operation.
The “Splash Brothers 2.0” dream died before it ever took flight.
A year later, Klay Thompson left for Dallas. The core aged. The roster shrank. And the Warriors were left clinging to one elite shooter in Curry and memories of dominance.
Did the Warriors, in a moment of crisis management, make the single most costly mistake of the Steph Curry era?
“THE HEIR”: JORDAN POOLE’S METEORIC RISE AND PERFECT TIMING
To understand the magnitude of the loss, you have to revisit Jordan Poole’s rise.
The Warriors selected Poole 28th overall in the 2019 NBA Draft out of Michigan.
Just one week earlier, disaster struck.
Klay Thompson tore his ACL in Game 6 of the NBA Finals.
Poole wasn’t just a draft pick he became an emergency lifeline.
When Thompson later suffered an Achilles injury that sidelined him for two full seasons, Poole was thrust into real responsibility.
And he delivered.
After a rocky rookie year, Poole exploded into a legitimate offensive weapon. During the 2022 championship run, he averaged 17 points per game in the playoffs, providing electric scoring bursts that perfectly complemented Curry.
By the 2022–23 season, Poole was a full-time starter, averaging 20.4 points per game at just 23 years old.
He wasn’t a role player.
He was a star in incubation.
“He was doing what Curry was doing not every night, but you saw the flashes,” Isaiah Thomas said.
“If Curry isn’t having it, or if Curry’s hurt, he can really make up for it.”
Golden State believed it too committing four years, $140 million to Poole.
The baton was being passed.
Then Draymond Green’s fist changed everything.
THE PUNCH HEARD AROUND THE BAY: A FRACTURE THAT COULDN’T BE FIXED
The punch wasn’t just an incident.
It was a symbolic execution of the future by the past.
Green’s attack shattered trust inside the locker room. Though the organization attempted to downplay it, the damage was irreversible.
Poole’s confidence dipped. His relationship with leadership collapsed. The 2022–23 season became a year of quiet tension and visible discomfort.
Faced with an impossible situation, the front office made its choice.
They sided with the veteran.
In July 2023, the Warriors traded Poole along with a protected 2030 first-round pick, Ryan Rollins, and Patrick Baldwin Jr. to the Wizards for 38-year-old Chris Paul.
It was short-sighted.
A 24-year-old potential cornerstone was swapped for an aging legend on an expiring deal whose skill set overlapped awkwardly with Curry.
The message was clear:
Draymond Green’s presence mattered more than Jordan Poole’s potential.
THE AFTERMATH: A DYNASTY UNRAVELING IN REAL TIME
The consequences were swift and brutal.
First, the fit failed.
Chris Paul couldn’t replicate Poole’s shot creation or spacing. The dual-point-guard experiment sputtered.
Second, the succession plan evaporated.
When Klay Thompson left for Dallas, the Warriors had no replacement.
Third, the roster’s flaws were exposed.
Draymond at center in a West dominated by Jokic, Davis, and Holmgren became untenable.
“I’m a fan of Draymond, but that’s just not going to hold up anymore,” Teague said.
Worst of all, the assets were gone.
The ultimate irony came when Ryan Rollins, included as a throw-in, dropped a career-high 32 points against Golden State, a painful reminder of what they surrendered.
The Warriors became a roster without identity too old to dominate, too thin to defend, too proud to rebuild.
THE ALTERNATE REALITY: WHAT IF THE WARRIORS HAD CHOSEN POOLE?
What if Golden State had made the painful but logical choice?
What if they had traded Draymond Green instead?
The backlash would have been intense. But the return could have reshaped the franchise — size, defense, youth, flexibility.
Financially, Poole’s deal represented the next eight years, not the final two of Curry’s prime.
Curry is 37.
Poole is 26.
The handoff could have been graceful.
Instead, the Warriors chose loyalty over evolution.
They chose yesterday over tomorrow.
FINAL VERDICT: THE MOMENT THE DYNASTY CHOSE ITS OWN END
The Poole trade wasn’t just a bad move.
It was a philosophical failure.
A refusal to make the ruthless decision required to sustain greatness.In the NBA, dynasties don’t die quietly they hesitate, and then collapse.Jeff Teague’s verdict echoes louder with every passing season:
“It was over with.”
The punch was the warning.
The trade was the confirmation.
The dynasty is now a memory.
If you were the Warriors’ GM in the summer of 2023, who would you have chosen Draymond Green or Jordan Poole to build the final chapters of the Stephen Curry era?