The one place you don't want to have a Poole Party

Good morning. The Pelicans swap C.J. McCollum for Jordan Poole. Out of context, that's great. In New Orleans? Uh oh. Let's basketball.

Cards on the table: I am a 95th percentile Jordan Poole advocate among NBA analysts, in my own estimation. He was a starter on a championship team, and no worse than that team's fourth best player. This past season for a totally overmatched club with few offensive weapons other than himself, he had 59% True Shooting on a 29% usage rate. Here's the list of eight players who hit those figures and played enough to qualify for the scoring title:

• Jordan Poole
• Anthony Edwards
• LeBron James
• Jalen Brunson
• Steph Curry
• Giannis Antetokounmpo
• Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
• Nikola Jokic

Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, Devin Booker, Cade Cunningham, Trae Young, Franz Wagner and James Harden all hit the usage mark but had worse scoring efficiency than Poole. Among the 15 highest-usage players in the NBA last season, which has significant overlap with the best players in the NBA last season, Jordan Poole was right smack dab in the middle in terms of efficiency.

There are some caveats to this impromptu celebration of Poole:

• This is basically the only positive thing Jordan Poole does for your basketball team. He can create for others to some degree, but that's offset by a shockingly poor turnover rate. (Once a Warrior, always a Warrior.)
• He played way fewer minutes per game than all of those other high-usage players.
• You have to really protect him on defense.
• He is due $66 million over the next two seasons, which is not terrible for the value provided, but it's also not a screaming deal.

Poole was one of the my favorite players to keep tabs on this summer, should the Wizards have decided to move him for value as they continue to rebuild from the studs up. Poole's just 26, but those caveats and a likely disinterest in extending his contract in Washington before they know exactly who their next superstar will be means it was probably time to move on. I was going to be very excited for Poole's next step ...

... unless it was one of two places: Sacramento (who needs a non-playmaking defense-light two-guard like I need a club to the head) and New Orleans.