Raptors Head Into Trade Deadline with Victory Over Spurs As Jakob Poeltl Rumors Swirl

The Toronto Raptors knocked off the San Antonio Spurs to head into the trade deadline as rumors swirl about Jakob Poeltl, Fred VanVleet, and Gary Trent Jr.

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There was a look of surprise as Gregg Popovich walked into his pre-game availability Wednesday night in Toronto. Raptors-Spurs, he must have though, why are there so many people here?

"You guys have nothing better to do than this?" he quipped before taking his seat.

At this point, on the eve of Thursday's trade deadline, the basketball is almost an afterthought. Even as Jakob Poeltl warmed up for the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night, rumors swirled about a potential reunion for the Austrian center in Toronto. 

Throughout the past month-plus, it has been said often that the Spurs were reluctant to trade Jakob Poeltl. Over the past 24 hours, though, that tone has been replaced by the strongest signals to date that San Antonio is prepared to move him before Thursday's 3 PM ET deadline.

— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) February 9, 2023

The Raptors, of course, can't talk specifically about any trade discussions but it wasn't lost on anyone when Raptors coach Nick Nurse praised Poeltl, the former the Raptors' former 9th pick in the 2016 draft.

"We loved him when he was here," said Nurse, answering a question from one of the few Spurs reporters in attendance. "Just a really good, smart, tough, hard-working, does a lot of the game. He’s a screener, a rebounder, rim protector, pretty smart on ‘D’, not necessarily a shot blocker but body-up rim protector kind of guy.

"That’s pretty good on the list of big guy things to do: If you can rebound, protect the rim and pass the ball, set a few screens, he can handle it and get it to the rim and finish a little bit, too."

Sounds like something Toronto could use? Sure! But this team is 26-30 and looked every bit as bad as the tanking Spurs for large swaths of Wednesday's 112-98 victory over San Antonio.

Changes are coming for this group, ones likely more significant than just a small rejigging of the roster for some sort of play-in/playoff run. While one game certainly won't change anyone's trade value, Wednesday didn't hurt the Raptors.

Gary Trent Jr. did his thing, getting into his bag of tricks for pull-up jumpers. He even mixed in a few savvy passes, connecting with Chris Boucher and Scottie Barnes for a pair of three-pointers. He was, however, absent late in the fourth quarter as Toronto opted to go with Boucher in the closing lineup rather than Trent who finished the night with 15 points, five rebounds, and three assists.

Fred VanVleet looked like, well, a guy who could help a good team. His shot is still a little wonky, just 5-for-16 for 16 points, but his role is so much better suited to be a secondary or tertiary peice on a championship team than the key guy on whatever the Raptors fashion themselves as this season.

Boucher and Thad Young haven't had much trade deadline buzz lately, if that's even the right word. Rightly so, to some extent. But the two could be solid bench players or at least veteran depth players on playoff teams. Boucher, in particular, has looked really good lately. He came into Wednesday averaging 12 points and 7.6 rebounds while shooting 47.8% on nearly three three-point attempts per game over his last eight games.

"He was really a force out there," Nurse said of Boucher who had 18 points and 11 rebounds in 30 minutes. "He was just on the run of playing really well, blocking shots, on the glass, on the offensive glass. So yeah, it was good. He's had three really good games in a row for sure."

It would be shocking if Pascal Siakam was traded but it wasn't hard to see why teams are at least calling Toronto about the 28-year-old forward who had 18 points in the first quarter en route to a game-high 37 points 11 rebounds, and 7 assists. Siakam had been in a bit of a funk over the road trip but bounced back in a big way with impact plays at both ends of the court.

"We’ve got a lot of good players on a team that’s not winning so that’s pretty much it," VanVleet said of the trade rumors. "We haven’t played up to our standard this year and so we put ourselves in this position and you gotta deal with it. You gotta understand there’s probably every team in the league calling, we got a lot of guys that a lot of teams would want, and we’re not in a great situation so the front office will do their thing and do what’s best for the organization."

Toronto gave this group a chance, a longer one than it probably deserved. For weeks the organization has stayed patient, reportedly telling teams it wanted to wait until the last minute to evaluate its options and eventually make a decision.

Now it's time.

Up Next: Utah Jazz

After the trade deadline Thursday, Toronto will be right back at it Friday night when they take on the Utah Jazz at 7:30 p.m. ET