Jakob Poeltl Talks About Losing his 'Best Friend' on the Team & the Raptors Rebuild
Jakob Poeltl is used to losing.
He doesn’t like it. It’s never been his goal. But after parts of four losing seasons in San Antonio including one in which the Spurs were tanking for the No. 1 pick, he knows what it’s like when priorities shift away from winning.
Then came his trade to the Toronto Raptors last season. For a little while, Poeltl thought he’d been freed.
He was thrilled to rejoin the Raptors organization and play alongside Fred VanVleet, OG Anunoby, and Pascal Siakam, he said at the time. He was looking forward to playing winning basketball again on a team with playoff hopes, he said following the 2023 trade deadline.
But now Poeltl is back on a team with other priorities.
In the past two weeks since the Austrian big man injured his ankle stepping on Pascal Siakam’s foot, Toronto has drastically reshaped its roster. Poeltl’s best friend is now in Indiana and the Raptors are making long-term development the organization’s guiding light.
“For me, it was tough because I think he was the guy that I was closest to on this team,” Poeltl said of Siakam’s trade.
Poeltl knew it was coming. The rumors had been circulating and after the Anunoby deal, it was obvious Siakam was the next to go. Knowing the situation made it easier when reality hit, Poeltl said, but still, it was disappointing to see Siakam go.
“It's really sad for me to lose my best friend on the team,” Poeltl added.
This wasn’t exactly what Poeltl signed up for when he re-signed with the Raptors this past summer on a four-year, $78 million deal. Reporting at the time suggested the Spurs were the other team interested in Poeltl during free agency but the 7-footer didn’t want to be on a rebuilding team, per ESPN.
“The only thing that was important to me is that I was on a team that could play competitive basketball. As long as it's not like a team that’s really actively trying to tank is the thing for me,” Poeltl said following practice Thursday. “I want to play on a team that's trying to win every night.
“Even though we had some changes, we lost some really good players, I think we're still in a course where we're trying to fill around this team right now and we're not hunting for a number one draft pick. As long as that's the case, I think I'm gonna be happy here.”
Toronto isn’t hunting the No. 1 pick this year. The 11-loss gap between the Raptors and the Detroit Pistons is too big to even get all that close, but a few extra losses for a better shot to keep their first-round pick doesn’t seem to bother the Raptors right now. Nobody is using the forbidden T word, but it’s not hard to see Toronto’s main objective isn’t to win games.
“I think of the big picture of where the team is going and how we need this team to develop toward the end of this season and into the summer and into next season, that trumps everything,” Raptors coach Darko Rajaković said Wednesday. “If that means we’re going to play less zone, so we can get better in our individual defense and really focus on that, then it's going to be that. We’re not gonna sacrifice anything on our team development or player development; that's most important thing for us.”
As long as Toronto is competitive, Poeltl said he’ll be content. He learned a lot from being the leader on some bad Spurs teams and while that was certainly helpful for his development, he’d much prefer to be on a team with playoff aspirations rather than one looking for extra ping-pong balls on draft lottery night.
When Poeltl does return at some point in the next few games, it’ll be to a team that looks far more like the one he left last season than the one he thought he was signing up for this past summer.
He’s been in this spot before and, whether he likes it or not, he’s here again.
