Run Your Pool Apologizes For 'Offending' Jordan Poole With Promotional Joke

Sports pool website Run Your Pool forgot one of the primary rules of operating a business in 2022: jokes are strictly forbidden. Especially if they're about Jordan Poole getting coldcocked by Draymond Green.

Run Your Pool ran afoul of this in an email to members. In it, they dared to crack a joke about Jordan Poole getting punched by Draymond Green at a Golden State Warriors practice.

Before we pass judgment let's take a look at the offending joke.

Jordan Poole Was Selected 28th Overall In 2019

Alright, so it's a little ham-handed, but it's more creative than 99.99% of marketing you'll ever see. Making a signed Jordan Poole jersey the prize in a knockout pool is pretty funny. Plus, they said it themselves; they're honoring him this way!

That joke had less teeth than a late night monologue joke. Alright, maybe not today's monologues, but Conan, Letterman, Leno, and Carson would've gone for it. That bygone generation of late night hosts who didn't just parrot progressive talking points and play Scattergories with the cast of Young Sheldon.

It's also not like Run Your Pool was making fun of Poole while he's hooked up to a ventilator or eating all of his meals through a straw. He was fine.

He took a punch in practice. It happens, just ask Shaq.

Poole and Draymond even moved past the incident and are focused on the 2022-23 NBA season. As far as I'm concerned it's fair-game joke fodder.

But that's my take as a person capable of rational thought (I can also play the intro to Van Halen's Hot For Teacher on guitar).

Others don't have that same luxury.

Comedy legend Mel Brooks once joked about people falling to their deaths in open sewers, but we can safely assume that he doesn't endorse this. (Photo by Phillip Faraone/FilmMagic)

Run Your Apologized For 'Offending' Jordan Poole

Apparently, the site got some flack for their good-natured Jordan Poole knockout promotion because they followed that first email with a doozy of a groveling apology a few days later.

"Dear RYP Community," it started because I think there's an unwritten rule that all apologies must include some use of the word "community."

"Last Friday, we were short-sighted to send out our Knockout Pool promotion. While the intent was to be light-hearted, it is a sensitive subject matter and we would never seriously condone violence toward anyone. Jordan Poole was in no way, shape, or form affiliated with the pool."

Since when does cracking a joke constitute condoning anything?

Mel Brooks once said, "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."

I don't know Mel personally, and far be it from me to speak on behalf of a bonafide comedy legend, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't advocating for more pedestrian accidents and didn't get a letter-bomb from relatives of open-sewer victims and survivors.

"Dear Mr. Brookes,

While I loved High Anxiety and can quote History of the World, Part I by heart, I found your statement on the matter to be harmful, and quite, frankly, dangerous. You see, my father died after falling into an open sewer..."

No one with a properly functioning prefrontal cortex would think that Run Your Poole was advocating for more people to sucker-punch their NBA teammates.

Jordan Poole was the one person who could justifiably claim to be offended by a joke at his expense, and he didn't do that. he didn't have to. A bunch of nobodies was happy to do it for him. (Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images)

Run Your Pool Was Sorry For Offending People, ESPECIALLY Jordan Poole

The apology continued, they felt they still had lots of 'splainin' to do...

"All this to say: we’re sorry to anyone who was offended and, in particular, to Jordan Poole."

Only one person could have been offended by this and it is Jordan Poole. Again, I haven't asked him, but I'm fairly certain he wasn't.

The phenomenon of getting offended on others' behalf is bizarre. It's usually done under the auspices of protecting the marginalized or those who can't defend themselves.

Jordan Poole is an NBA champion who just signed a 4-year, $140 million extension. He's fine.

Anyone offended on their behalf is simply trying to shoehorn themselves into a story that they're not a part of.

"Thank you all and let’s have a fun NBA season ahead of us, — Team RYP." the mea culpa concluded.

Welp, that was ridiculous, but at least they got that off their chests, I suppose.

I'm not sure who looks to a sports pool site for moral guidance, but apparently, there's a small group who do.

A small, very noisy, annoying group.

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Reigle