Snapshot
- Team / role: New Orleans Pelicans reserve combo guard, now modelled outside the healthy-night ten; a bench shot creator competing with Jordan Hawkins and Bryce McGowens for the contested tenth slot.
- 2025-26 baseline: 39 games, 23.9 MPG, 13.4 PTS, 2.0 REB, 3.1 AST, 0.6 STL, 0.4 BLK and 2.5 threes on .372 FG and .860 FT. NBA team statistics, accessed 2026-07-18
- Depth signal: a July 15 projection placed him behind Dejounte Murray and Jeremiah Fears at point guard, and beat coverage records that New Orleans removed him from the rotation entirely in the second half of 2025-26 while attempting to move his salary. Yahoo, 2026-07-15
- Contract mechanic: Poole carries a $34,044,642 cap hit for 2026-27 and is a UFA after it. That is the largest expiring contract on the roster and the team's principal salary-matching instrument, which makes him more likely to be moved than to be re-promoted. HoopsHype salary page
2026-27 projection
| GP | MPG | FG% | FT% | 3PM | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55 | 14 | .410 | .860 | 1.3 | 7.8 | 1.3 | 1.9 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 1.1 |
Fantasy translation
- Nine-category: 190-240; a late-round threes/FT% flyer at best, and even that assumes the field-goal drain improves and he holds a rotation spot he did not hold last spring.
- Points: 190-240; bench usage is insufficient for standard leagues.
- Dynasty: 170-220; a trade to a rebuilding team could revive value, but New Orleans is a poor role environment while Murray and Fears are healthy.
Correction 2026-07-18 Poole was previously inside the base healthy-night ten at 16 minutes, with a 60 GP × 16 MPG board line and bands of 160-210 / 165-220 / 130-180. He is moved outside the healthy ten and cut to 55 × 14, with all three bands lowered. Reason: New Orleans pulled him from the rotation outright late in 2025-26 while shopping his salary, he shot .372, and his $34.0M deal is now the roster's primary expiring salary-match rather than a role commitment. His 16 healthy-night minutes were redistributed inside the team model to Hawkins (+8), Missi (+2 of the center reallocation) and Fears (+2), with the balance absorbed by holding Murphy at 34. Sources: Spotrac/HoopsHype 2026-27 salary · CBS 2025-26 splits.
Role, floor and ceiling
The revised healthy model gives Poole zero allocated minutes; his 14 board MPG are pure injury and rest absorption. Floor: he is traded in a salary dump, or sits as a healthy scratch as he did for stretches last spring. Ceiling: 27 minutes, 15 points and 2.8 threes after a trade to a team that needs shot creation, or a Murray injury. The gap between those branches makes him a watchlist player rather than a draft target.
Injury and transaction monitor
Poole played only 39 games in 2025-26 — six starts averaging 18.0 points in 33.7 minutes, then 31 bench appearances at 12.0 points — so availability must be checked in camp, but the research packet did not verify a current carryover injury. He remains on the official roster through July 18. Trade status is the key transaction variable, and multiple outlets have run salary-dump scenarios; none had been executed by the research cut, so all of them are treated here as speculation rather than reporting. Official Pelicans roster, accessed 2026-07-18
Career record
Pre-NBA: Two seasons at Michigan (2017-18, 2018-19), 75 games combined at 9.4 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.4 assists on .434/.370/.831, with a bench role as a freshman on a national runner-up team and a starting job as a sophomore. Best remembered in college for the buzzer-beating three that beat Houston in the 2018 NCAA tournament. Per-season college splits are not verified here. Draft: 2019, first round, 28th pick, Golden State. NBA champion in 2022.
| Season | Age | Team | GP | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PM | FG% | FT% | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | 20 | GSW | 57 | 22.4 | 8.8 | 2.1 | 2.4 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 1.3 | .333 | .798 | 1.3 |
| 2020-21 | 21 | GSW | 51 | 19.4 | 12.0 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 1.9 | .432 | .882 | 1.0 |
| 2021-22 | 22 | GSW | 76 | 30.0 | 18.5 | 3.4 | 4.0 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 2.8 | .448 | .925 | 2.5 |
| 2022-23 | 23 | GSW | 82 | 30.0 | 20.4 | 2.7 | 4.5 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 2.6 | .430 | .870 | 3.1 |
| 2023-24 | 24 | WSH | 78 | 30.1 | 17.4 | 2.7 | 4.4 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 2.4 | .413 | .877 | 2.4 |
| 2024-25 | 25 | WSH | 68 | 29.4 | 20.5 | 3.0 | 4.5 | 1.3 | 0.4 | 3.5 | .432 | .883 | 3.0 |
| 2025-26 | 26 | NOP | 39 | 23.9 | 13.4 | 2.0 | 3.1 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 2.5 | .372 | .860 | 1.8 |
| Career | 451 | 27.2 | 16.6 | 2.6 | 3.7 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 2.5 | .418 | .877 | 2.3 |
Durability: Four straight seasons of 68 or more games from 2021-22 through 2024-25, then the 2025-26 collapse to 39. That was part injury and part benching: a quadriceps strain in early November cost him 18 consecutive games, and once Dejounte Murray and Trey Murphy III were healthy he was a DNP-coach's decision, including a nine-game healthy-scratch stretch before the All-Star break. He was also listed with left ankle soreness later in the year. Note that the snapshot above splits his 39 games as six starts plus 31 bench appearances, which sums to 37 — that internal split does not reconcile with the verified 39-game total.
Trajectory: Seven seasons that peaked early and have been drifting since. The 2021-22 title year and the 2022-23 follow-up established him as a 20-point creator, and Washington gave him the volume to repeat it — 20.5 points and 3.5 threes in 2024-25, on a career-best 37.8% from deep. New Orleans acquired him and the fit failed immediately: .372 from the field, a role that shrank to the second unit and then to nothing, and a team openly shopping his salary. The elite free throw percentage (.877 career) and three-point volume are the only categories that have never wavered; the field goal percentage has been below .450 every single season, and the turnovers were 3.0-plus at peak usage. His $34.0 million expiring deal is New Orleans' primary salary-matching instrument, which makes a trade the single most likely path back to relevance — a rebuilding team that needs shot creation would restore 27-plus minutes and roughly 15 points with three threes. Failing that, he needs a Murray injury. Draft him nowhere in standard formats; watch the transaction wire instead.
Career sources: ESPN career stats · Wikipedia — Jordan Poole · Poole out with quad injury (NOLA.com) · Poole the odd man out after Murray's return (SI)
Open questions
- Is Poole on the opening-night roster?
- Can he earn more than 18 minutes with Murray, Fears and Jones healthy?
- Does the .372 field-goal season rebound enough to restore category viability?