Toronto Raptors President and General Manager Masai Ujiri gives Raptors 2016 first round draft pick Jakob Poeltl, his first Raptors jersey at the BioSteel Centre, in Toronto, on Friday, June 24, 2016.Eduardo Lima/The Canadian Press
As he was introducing new draft pick Jakob Poeltl on Friday afternoon, Toronto Raptors General Manager Masai Ujiri chuckled about a time last summer when the Austrian 7-foot centre dropped 27 points on Jonas Valanciunas in a friendly versus Lithuania.
"I'm going to remind J.V. about it by text right after this," Ujiri said with a laugh.
Poeltl arrived in Toronto a day after the Raptors selected him with the ninth overall pick in Thursday's NBA Draft. The 20-year Vienna native toured the Raptors practice facility with family and friends in tow, still getting used to the fact that he's the first player ever drafted from Austria – a nation more known for skiing or soccer than basketball.
The Raptors have called him "an insurance policy at the centre and forward positions" and suggested he and Valanciunas could be used on the floor at the same time. As Poeltl received his Raptors jersey – No. 42 – and mingled with Toronto reporters, he was asked once again about that friendly versus Toronto's starting big man.
"Is that gonna be a thing now?" asked the likeable youngster, getting a laugh from the circle.
Poeltl talked about being in a gym from a very early age, a ball boy for his parents, both national volleyball players for Austria.
"For me as a kid, it was pretty obvious that I would play a sport and it was basketball. It was pretty random but I loved it and I never looked back." said Poeltl. "I hope that with me playing in the NBA and with a few other Austrians playing pro in Europe, it will push the level in Austria."
In a nation with few basketball opportunities, he was lucky to find good coaches and chances to compete with older, better players. He didn't watch much NBA until he was older, because it wasn't on TV there.
He played as a teen for the Arkadia Traiskirchen Lions in the Austrian Bundesliga, and Utah discovered him playing for Austria at the 2013 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship.
"We were looking for size, and my assistant coach brought me this film of this big kid who could run like a deer," said Utah basketball coach Larry Krystkowiak by phone Friday. "I wanted to see him for myself, because I couldn't believe a kid that big could run that well and that fast. When I saw him, he really was that tall."
Krystkowiak visited the Poeltl family in Vienna and won the player over against other U.S colleges. Poeltl began with the Utes in the fall of 2014. Krystkowiak can remember him trying too hard in practice during the first few weeks. He was turnover-prone and far too speeded up. But he had so much promise and was working well with point guard Delon Wright – whom the Raptors would draft after that season.
"We had a great team, and I had all my players do a survey one time. I asked each of them to write down for me who they thought was the most talented player on our team," said Krystkowiak. "All but one player wrote down Delon, but Delon wrote down Jakob."
Krystkowiak remembers a time that fall when the team did a boot camp weekend led by U.S. Navy Seals to build toughness and a sense of team. The military style weekend involved being sprayed with water during gruelling workouts, carrying logs across campus, sleeping on the gym floor, and being wakened at the crack of dawn.
For one team-building exercise, the squad was broken into groups of four, and Poeltl – just a freshman at the time – was named captain of one group. The navy commander spread 30 items out on a blanket and gave each group one minute to memorize them for later recall.
"Most of the groups sort of flailed around, not really organized about the task, but Jakob showed incredible leadership, immediately breaking the blanket into four quadrants and telling his group members to each memorize only items in one corner. They got like 100-per-cent right," said Krystkowiak. "I made eyes with the commander and he said to me 'you've got a special one there.' "
The team made a run to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament that year. Poeltl seriously considered leaving for the NBA then, but stuck around.
His sophomore season was even better – one in which he was named a second-team all-American and the Pacific-12 conference player of the year. He ranked No. 2 in the Pac-12 in scoring (17.2 points per game); No. 4 in rebounds (9.1); and topped the conference in shooting percentage (64.6 per cent). Poeltl became the first Utah player to surpass 600 points in a season since Andrew Bogut did it in 2004-05.
The Raptors' scouting staff watched Poeltl for two years at Utah. They fell in love with traits such as his running ability, his knack for rolling hard to the basket and his great hands.
"When you see a big guy that loves to play, his parents were athletes and he grew up in a basketball or sports environment, and loves the game of basketball and loves to be in the gym, just run and hug him and take him and run," Ujiri said. "Because you don't find them, a lot of big guys are pushed to play, right? That's the reality of life. You're seven feet, so go play basketball. This kid loves to play; he loves the game of basketball. We've done our homework on it."
Rachel Brady