The Golden State Warriors have every reason to downplay their interest in moving Jordan Poole. Entering trade negotiations from multiple positions of weakness is a losing game even before letting rumors of a player's availability run rampant. The Warriors' new front office has nothing to gain and even more to lose from confirming its hopes of trading Poole in a cost-cutting deal that brings back a win-now veteran before next season.

Regardless, Poole playing 2023-24 in the Bay certainly seems more likely now than it did before The Athletic's reporting about ownership's willingness to pay another record luxury-tax bill and Golden State “not actively” shopping him. The Poole who trudged off the floor in the playoffs after barely getting on it isn't nearly good enough to help this team vault back toward top-tier championship contention, though. If he's sticking around, Poole needs to be much better for the Warriors than he was this season.

Here are three ways Jordan Poole can regain his star form with Golden State as trade buzz continues to swirl different directions.

3. Bounce back from beyond the arc

The most under-discussed aspect of Poole's wholly disappointing season was his suddenly lacking proficiency as a three-point shooter. He shot a below-average 33.6% from deep, failing to make good on marked improvement in that regard during his breakout 2021-22 campaign.

Poole made 36.4% of his catch-and-shoot triples and 30.3% of his pull-up tries this season, per NBA.com/stats, hardly stoking fear in the heart of defenses whether he was spotting up on the weak side or stepping behind screens to launch off the dribble. Those numbers are dispiritingly similar to ones Poole managed in 2020-21, when he began the season in the G League before ending it as a pivotal young building block for the Dubs.

Could his Curry-lite highlight reel of ridiculously tough splashed threes be obscuring the fact that Poole's actually nothing better than a middling long-range shooter? With 2022-23 almost firmly in the rearview mirror, last year is what really stands out as the anomaly when it comes to his shot-making ability. There's now more evidence Poole is closer to Andrew Wiggins' level as an overall marksman than Stephen Curry or Klay Thompson's.

Either way, the good news for Golden State is that Poole is at least bound to rise from the depths of his rough postseason shooting woes. He went 6-of-29 (20.7%) on triples in the playoffs that came with defenders between four-to-six feet away, per NBA.com/stats. Even if he isn't the third Splash Brother, Poole is obviously a much better shooter than that.

But any chance of scraping the star offensive ceiling he reached throughout the Warriors' most recent title run going forward begins with Poole re-establishing himself as one of the game's most dynamic, reliable shot-makers.

2. Make major strides defensively

The notion Poole could ever develop into a plus defender was always extremely thin. Steve Kerr's insistence otherwise leading up to 2022-23 was surely more about lighting a fire under Poole than any internal belief it was really possible.

Every small guard gets attacked in the playoffs. Even an extra 10-15 pounds of muscle wouldn't keep Poole from being put in those crosshairs. Curry's major mid-career strides defensively nevertheless served as a helpful blueprint for him to follow. Doing work early, making multiple efforts and staying scheme sound is all Poole needs to do to go from abject liability on that end to readily playable under the postseason pressure cooker.

Serving as a bright red target for LeBron James and De'Aaron Fox in pick-and-roll is one thing. That's a reality Poole is inevitably poised to deal with for pretty much his entire career, making his low-value gambles one pass away and palpable lack of teeth tangling with role players after switches all the more debilitating.

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There's no use sugarcoating it: Poole regressed defensively this season. Gaffes off the ball were all too common even when he was fully engaged, the latter of which occurred less and less frequently as the games got more and more important.

You can't separate anything about Poole's performance in 2022-23 from lingering fallout of the punch to the face he took from Draymond Green before the Dubs began their quest for back-to-back titles. It's no leap to suggest he'd feel it most on defense, where Green is Golden State's undisputed leader and Poole has never made his mark in the first place.

Poole can't flip a switch to suddenly turn into Gary Payton II. There are challenges to pairing him with Curry in the playoffs that won't be solved by a sharper edge and revved-up motor. Still, defense is about effort first and foremost. Poole simply must bring it with real consistency from here.

1. Improve on-ball decision-making

Golden State needs all the shooting and scoring punch it can get behind Curry. With Donte DiVincenzo set to bail for a bigger payday and Andre Iguodala's retirement becoming official, though, Poole's presence looms largest to the Warriors next season as a much-needed source of playmaking.

Dire as his shooting and defensive struggles were in the postseason, most damning of Poole's performance was just how lost he looked trying to create offense on the ball. Hopes of him evolving into a full-time floor general in his prime all but vanished entirely over the 82-game grind, lost in a haze of maddening shot selection, reckless passes and loose dribbles.

That prior realization didn't make watching Poole double down on his worst tendencies during the playoffs any easier to stomach.

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The pressure Poole puts on defenses with his off-dribble shooting range and stop-start burst is absolutely crucial for Golden State. No one on the roster but Curry is more difficult to keep out of the paint, forcing rotations that lead to open shots. At his best, Poole's superior explosiveness helps him get there even easier than Curry does.

But Poole was a shell of himself off the bounce in the postseason, his confidence crumbling with every Davion Mitchell stop and Anthony Davis contest. Aggression is one of the best traits of Poole's game when properly harnessed. It wasn't against the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings, Poole left to continue forcing the issue with newfound tentativeness that kept him from generating quality looks for himself and his teammates.

There's only one Curry, and the Dubs' offensive scheme—especially with Green on the floor—doesn't require a table-setting guard to get humming. No one is asking Poole to morph into a true floor general.

But the playoffs exposed just how sorely the Warriors missed another player who can produce dependable offense when opponents sell out to stop Curry or he was getting a breather on the bench. Allowing him to begin possessions off the ball wouldn't just lessen the massive offensive burden Curry shoulders, but add more variety to Golden State's attack—a necessity against basketball's best defenses.

Poole seamlessly found the right mix of creating individual and team offense in 2021-22, even against a slate of stingy playoff defenses. It stands to reason he didn't lose that preternatural balance forever. One year older and a full year removed from the incident with Green, maybe a more mature, clear-eyed Poole taps back into that blend in 2023-24. He better.

Coming off a season he took a clear step back as a playmaker, the Dubs won't have much choice but to put the ball in Poole's hands even more going forward—assuming he's still wearing blue and gold, of course.