Jakob Poeltl signs four-year deal with Raptors

Jakob Poeltl signs four-year deal with Raptors

Jakob Poeltl has signed re-signed a four-year, $80 million deal with the Toronto Raptors, ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski was first to report Friday.

ESPN Sources: Free agent C Jakob Poeltl has agreed on a four-year, $80 million contract to stay with the Toronto Raptors. Poeltl is represented by Michael Tellem and Sam Goldfeder of @excelbasketball. Deal includes a player option.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 30, 2023

In a split 2022-23 season with the San Antonio Spurs and Raptors, the 7-foot big man tallied 12.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.2 steals and 1.3 blocks on 65.2 percent shooting.

Poeltl began his career in Toronto and began his second stint after getting dealt there ahead of the Feb. 9 trade deadline. His deal is expected to begin at $17.9 million with a $22.1 player option tagged onto the last year for 2026-27, per Spotrac.

Poeltl did a good job leveraging Toronto’s shot creators into more advantageous situations. Now playing under a head coach in Darko Rajakovic, who utilizes plenty of player movement and pick-and-roll offensively, will only enhance Poeltl’s skillset. It remains to be seen what his philosophy will be defensively, but Poeltl best excels in the (deep) drop, where he’s able to protect the rim and sway shots.

Poeltl will possess the 12th-highest cap-hit in 2023-24 with the 10th-highest average annual value ($20M), which is fair value for the 27-year-old. I’m interested to see how the rest of the Raptors roster shakes out–buddy do they have questions to answer–but inking Poeltl, an underrated big, is a good deal for Toronto.

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It has nearly $156 million allocated to 14 players, but will have decisions to make regarding the non-guaranteed contract of Joe Wieskamp and partially-guaranteed Thaddeus Young. What do you think about the acquisition of Poeltl? Let us know in the comments below!

This is a breaking news story. Stay tuned for updates.

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