Rookie Poeltl finds way to fit in with Raptors
TORONTO — It is a unique set of circumstances that have landed Jakob Poeltl at this point in his life and his basketball career, a point far along a path seldom taken by successful National Basketball Association rookies.
Each is different, each is important, each has led to the 21-year-old Toronto Raptor becoming a contributing member of a very good team.
He grew up in Austria, hardly a basketball hotbed but the son of volleyball stars, so there’s athletic DNA coursing through his veins.
He learned nuances of the game in college at Utah from Larry Krystkowiak, a former NBA player and head coach who was more than capable of turning a raw kid into a solid prospect.
And, to infuse the narrative with a little Canadian flavour, Poeltl credits one of his more physical Utah teammates — Calgary’s Dallin Bachynski — with toughening him up during myriad college practices to prepare Poeltl for the rough-and-tumble aspects of the NBA game.
Hardly the usual path of highprofile Amateur Athletic Union programs, a power conference college school and every imaginable all-star game to go to and play against the best of the era.
It’s a culmination of factors — and some good, old instincts that are basically impossible to teach.
“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 said Monday afternoon.
It has more than worked for the seven-foot native of Vienna, the first Austrian ever drafted by an NBA team, who is emerging late in the season as a vital backup for the Raptors as they make their run to the NBA playoffs.
“For me, just every time you put him in, he does something positive,” Raptors coach Dwane Casey said Monday. “There’s that trust, not only with myself but with his teammates. He’s doing positive things, he plays with physicality.
“He’s always in the right place, (makes) very few mistakes, 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.”
Poeltl’s biggest attribute may be his humility. He knows what he doesn’t know, he doesn’t get too happy with big nights or too down with bad ones. He avoids going berserk when the inevitable bad rookie calls go against him (“If that was me, I would have lost my mind a long time ago,” Casey said) and he’s built a reputation as a trustworthy young player over time.
“I wouldn’t say there’s a moment,” he said. “It’s just that trust is something you’ve got to develop over time just like with solid performances night in, night out.
“That’s how you earn your trust, like being in the right spots in defensive rotations, doing your job, playing hard. I feel like that’s how you earn a coach’s trust and that’s what I try to do.”