it depends. there's no way to tell if those particular spokes are strong enough or not, and it depends on your weight and how you hit those potholes... there's just a ton of variables. it could break but i'm going to guess that if your friend knows how to build a wheel, and the bend is less than 2mm out of true, the spokes can handle it. if they can't they're defective, or the build is flawed(spokes weren't stretched or tensioned properly even if you just forget about the bend).

a cross pattern is probably stronger if all other things are equal, but it doesn't necessarily mean your wheel will fail just because it's radial.