Kawakami: Jordan Poole is under the spotlight and wilting as the ...

LOS ANGELES — To be totally fair to Jordan Poole in this strained moment for everybody involved with the Warriors franchise, there wasn’t much for him to say late Monday night.

To be totally transparent about Poole’s situation and his mood after he was mostly a non-entity in the Warriors’ gut-wrenching 104-101 Game 4 loss to the Lakers, which put the Warriors on the brink of elimination, he clearly didn’t want to say much when approached by reporters in the locker room. And Poole didn’t communicate much.

“I’ve got nothing for you,” Poole said to me when I was the first one to his locker. He wasn’t unpleasant. He wasn’t exactly genial, but he didn’t bolt or put on his headphones and zone out, either. He sat in his chair and stared directly into his locker, with his back to the gathering crowd of reporters.

Poole, who hasn’t spoken to the media much this postseason, repeated that he had nothing to say a few times, kept looking into his locker but didn’t raise his voice once. Eventually, he answered a few questions with brief answers. Again: Not unpleasant. Not biting. Not angry. Just … not much in the sharing mood.

“We’ve got another game in a couple days; it’s at home,” Poole said of Game 5 coming up at Chase Center on Wednesday. “So we should get that one done.”

Can anything change for you in this series, Jordan?

“Work ethic doesn’t change,” Poole said. “Routine doesn’t change. Maybe opportunity changes, but you can only control what you can control. We’ve got another game in a couple days, at home.”

On the subject of opportunity, Poole only played 10 minutes on Monday, scored zero points, missed all four of his shots and deservedly didn’t play a second in the fourth quarter, which is becoming a glaring trend in the Warriors’ biggest games. Poole is averaging only 8 points per game in this series and shooting 35.3 percent; in the postseason overall, Poole is averaging 10.5 points per game and 34.2 percent from the field and 27.8 percent from 3-point distance. He just started the playoffs in a scramble and hasn’t recovered.

Of course, Poole isn’t the only or probably even the main reason the Warriors are in deep trouble and why this era might be coming to a close. He’s still only 23. He’s not Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson or Draymond Green. They’re the main guys. And Poole’s trying. He’s had a weird season overall, which, of course, began with Draymond punching him during a training camp practice. He obviously hates that the spotlight is on him now even though he isn’t playing much. Bad games or bad series can happen to anybody.

But Poole’s lack of playoff toughness and his lack of interest in discussing what he’s accountable for in this situation just makes Poole seem like something less than a full partner in the Warriors’ operation these days. Like he’s not quite investing his soul into this. Like his teammates and coaches aren’t quite investing in him, either. I mean, how could they?

GO DEEPER

Warriors step to brink of elimination, lose Game 4 to Lakers

There are large potential repercussions looming, including the possible end of the dynasty or maybe a revamping of the roster that includes trading Poole. It all has to be on the table given the Warriors’ pending financial crunch. So Poole’s future on a team that prides itself on playoff resilience is absolutely an unknown right now.

And if Poole was surprised we wanted to talk to him after this game, when the Lakers pulled Lonnie Walker IV off the bench and watched him score 15 enormous points while the Warriors were dying for anybody to put the ball in the basket, he shouldn’t have been. Poole signed a four-year, $123 million contract last October because he played well last postseason and the Warriors believed he could keep doing that for years to come.

Well, right when they really, really, really, really could’ve used that again, with the Lakers overplaying Curry and Klay looking harried, Steve Kerr decided to put Gary Payton II into the starting lineup over Poole for this game and then played Moses Moody in that spot for most of the fourth quarter.

Once again, just like in the huge Game 7 victory over the Kings when Poole played limited minutes, Poole wasn’t the right answer. He looks too sped up. His shot isn’t falling. His play can spiral from mistake to mistake to mistake. He’s never going to be an impressive defensive player. And when Poole doesn’t get key minutes, it causes a ripple effect through the rotation simply because the Warriors don’t have anybody like him to supplement Curry and Klay offensively.

Poole wasn’t in, so he can’t be blamed for the Warriors’ woeful 17-point output in the fourth quarter, which they entered with a seven-point lead. But he has to be good enough to earn those minutes. He has to be worth it. Or else there’s a notable void. And we’ve seen it this whole series, which the Warriors now trail 3-1.

“It just wasn’t his night,” Kerr said of Poole. “He didn’t have it going. It’s a game where you’re going possession by possession and we had other guys who were playing well. Moses came in, did a great job. Donte (DiVincenzo) gave us good minutes. Gary obviously starting the game really gave us a lift. Just we went to other guys. That doesn’t mean Jordan can’t come in and play a big role in Game 5.”

Poole’s teammates are aware of the Poole discourse among Warriors fans, I’m sure. They know he’s getting blamed. They probably know that Poole isn’t enjoying this. And it’s not like the Warriors to let one of their own go undefended.

“We get questions about him a lot and it’s our whole team, we’re all together in the sense of trying to figure out how to win playoff games,” Curry said of Poole. “We all have to make adjustments. We all have to play better considering we’re in a 3-1 hole. So there’s no sense in isolating him in this situation. It’s all about collectively what can we all do to be better. The conversations we have in film sessions and on the bench, in the locker room, are all consistent throughout the season, especially in this playoff run, of trying to answer that question.

“He’s a part of that, we’re all a part of that. And if we’re going to get out of this hole, we’re all going to have to play better.”

Maybe Poole will find his footing on Wednesday. He could lead the Warriors’ revival and he could crow about it or be humble about it, either way would be fair. I’ll be there for it if this happens. But I think it’s far more likely that the Warriors will win or lose this series without much from Poole the rest of the way and deal with the consequences later.

The main guys will decide how the rest of this postseason goes. They’ll protect Poole as much as they can, because that’s what the main guys do. But we all know that Curry, Klay and Draymond didn’t need others to protect them like this when they were young. They just performed and won when it was the toughest. That’s how you become a main guy. And if you don’t do any of this, it’s how you show that you probably never will be one.

(Photo: Adam Pantozzi / NBAE via Getty Images)