Poeltl playing central role

Raptors’ rookie moving up the team’s depth chart

With the absence of Kyle Lowry and the angst behind a team that was floundering there for a while, there was an area of recent progress on the Raptors roster that kind of got overlooked.

Jakob Poeltl is in his rookie season, is the first Austrian to be drafted into the NBA and for the most part this season, has been a quiet presence on the end of the Raptors’ bench.

But of late, Poeltl’s seat on the Raptors bench has been unoccupied because the 7-foot product of Larry Krystkowiak’s Utah program has earned himself some significant minutes.

Poeltl had a strong pre-season and with Jared Sullinger suddenly no longer in the mix, found himself with some consistent minutes in the early part of the regular season before Raptors’ coach Dwane Casey and his staff settled on Pascal Siakam as the starting power forward.

The minutes dried up but Poeltl continued to learn whether it was watching from the end of the bench, in practice, playing with the D-League 905s in Mississauga or the spot minutes he got in games with the parent club.

For most of that period, Lucas Nogueira was eating up most of those backup centre minutes and doing a solid job. Lately though, it has been Nogueira on the end of the bench and Poeltl coming in. Through March, he is averaging 12.8 minutes a night, the most playing time he’s seen since early November at the beginning of the season.

“For me, just every time you put him in, he does something positive,” Casey said. “There’s that trust, not only with myself but with his teammates. He’s doing positive things, he plays with physicality. The only thing — and it’s not his fault — is cheap fouls. He gets a lot of cheap calls.”

Those calls will eventually even out as Poeltl earns some credibility with the league’s officials.

But make no mistake, it has been Poeltl’s eagerness engaging opposing players physically that has made his jump up the depth chart possible.

“He’s always in the right place, very few mistakes,’’ said Casey. “He’s very physical, he’s not afraid, he loves contact. All those things add up. This is a physical game. and he meets all those criteria.”

Ironically, it was the physical nature of the NBA game that Poeltl’s counts as the toughest adjustment he’s had to make.

“Not now, not anymore because I feel like I’m used to it already,” Poeltl said. “I’m still not the most physical player but at least I’ve got adjusted to the new level of physicality in the NBA. But that was definitely a challenge at the start of the season, getting used to playing against bigger bodies and stronger guys.”

There’s also a natural feel for the game that, when you think about it, should be unnatural for a young man raised in Austria far away from any basketball hotbed.

Even Poeltl is a little unsure where his natural basketball instincts come from, but he is very much aware that he has them.

“I don’t know,” Poeltl said following a lengthy practice on Monday. “I mean, I guess both my parents were athletes. I was always in love with sports in general. I was like playing around, playing basketball as a little kid. But it’s really just instincts. I don’t know where it’s coming from. I just feel comfortable out there and I feel like I know where I’m supposed to go.”

Poeltl has surpassed Nogueira on the depth chart which leaves just starting centre Jonas Valanciunas ahead of him in terms of minutes. * See www.hebrewbasicburial.ca for shiva times