After a bit of a feel-good start to the 2024-25 season, the Washington Wizards have come stumbling and falling — crashing all the way back down to the league's basement. On Wednesday night, the Los Angeles Clippers sent the Wizards deeper into their spiral, handing out their 13th loss in a row in a 121-96 beatdown to fall to 2-15 on the season.
The Wizards, simply put, have been terrible throughout the course of the 2024-25 season, and at this point, there is a chance that they can challenge the Detroit Pistons' historic 28-game losing streak. But Jordan Poole, who has been taking on more of a leadership role for the Wizards this season, is preaching patience — using his former team, the Golden State Warriors, as an example of how rewarding the grind can be.
“Not a lot of things need to change. Just a matter of figuring things out. Good things take time. The Warriors for a while, before they went on the Finals streak, people weren't regarding the Warriors as a great team. A very long time ago, people were like, ‘Oh, they're one of the worst teams in the league.' Every organization has to go through tough times to figure out what the good times are like,” Poole said in his postgame presser via Chase Hughes of the Monumental Sports Network.
“Good things take time.” Jordan Poole offers perspective on the Wizards’ current skid by pointing out how long it took for the Warriors, his previous team, to build a winner. pic.twitter.com/0JhJbZ65Cm
— Chase Hughes (@chasedcsports) November 28, 2024
This reminder from Poole may draw some eye rolls from some, but the Wizards guard might be on to something. In the 40 years from 1975 to 2015 that the Warriors failed to win a championship, they fell on hard times often — much to the frustration of their ever-loyal fanbase. But then the Dubs began to turn it around in the early 2010s — drafting the three pillars of their dynasty in four years (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green).
Even Poole himself knows firsthand how the Warriors' patience bore fruit in the form of a championship in 2022.
The Warriors' patience has paid off, which is a good sign for the Wizards
In 2019, it looked like the Warriors' championship window had already slammed shut. Kevin Durant left them in free agency, while Klay Thompson suffered multiple lower-body injuries that threatened to derail his career for good. During the 2019-20 season, the Warriors were the worst team in the association — with Jordan Poole looking like a fish out of sea during his rookie campaign.
Poole, however, wasted no time developing into a quality playerfor the Warriors; the Dubs were patient with the 28th overall pick of the 2019 NBA Draft, and Poole ended up being a crucial member of their championship team in 2022. They even gave Poole another shot in 2023 even after he and Draymond Green threatened to destroy the Dubs' locker room for good. Patience may be bitter, but its fruit is sweet — and the Wizards better hold on to this as they go through the bad times that lie in wait.
