Going into the season, one of the biggest concerns about the Raptors’ roster was its center rotation. Jakob Poeltl missed much of last season with a back injury and simply did not look like himself. Nevertheless, the Raptors didn’t do much to shore up their center rotation. 6’7” Collin Murray-Boyles is their primary back-up big.
Poeltl has been available for all three Raptors games so far, but he’s been incredibly quiet, scoring just nine total points. He put up solid numbers in his second game—a 112-102 win against the Washington Wizards—with 6 points, 9 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 block, and 1 steal.
The next game was anything but solid. Poeltl didn’t score at all in a 117-94 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves, missing both of his field-goal attempts. Poeltl is not a big-time scorer, but he also didn’t contribute anything else in his 19 minutes on the floor. He grabbed one rebound, committed three fouls, and turned the ball over once.
The Raptors cannot have the tallest player in their rotation finish a game with one rebound—especially when he’s not scoring or defending at a high level. 6’6” RJ Barrett is averaging almost as many rebounds per game as Poeltl, and Scottie Barnes and Murray-Boyles have outrebounded him by a lot.
Three games is a small sample size, and Poeltl has plenty of time to put together a good season, but his first three games are already raising some concerns.
“Just monitor Jakob Poeltl’s minutes,” Zach Lowe said on the October 26 episode of the Zach Lowe Show. “Sort of early-season disaster potential emerging there for the Raptors.”
The Raptors still don’t have a good solution if Poeltl continues to struggle
The worst part about Poeltl’s slow start is that nothing has changed about the fact that the Raptors will struggle to find an upgrade. They’re still dealing with the same problems as at last season’s trade deadline and during the summer. Poeltl’s contract is still bad, good starting-level centers are still hard to come by, and the rest of the roster is still undersized.
If Poeltl doesn’t start putting up better numbers, it will be difficult to find an upgrade or at least a serviceable reserve who could back up Murray-Boyles before the trade deadline. And the worst thing: the Raptors have no one to blame but themselves. That extension was a questionable move right from the start, and it continues to get in the way of their roster upgrades.
If this is a taste of how the rest of the season will go for Poeltl, the Raptors’ front office will have to get creative—or simply accept that they will get little from the only true center in their rotation despite paying him almost 20 million dollars for the season.
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