If Kawhi Leonard becomes a Raptor before the new season starts, the Raptors have a chance to build on last season’s success of making the playoffs and pushing the Cavaliers to seven games with two starters sidelined. Still, even if the trade goes through, the Raptors’ roster is flawed.
One of the team’s biggest issues is the lack of center depth behind Jakob Poeltl. Collin Murray-Boyles is great, but he is also 6’7”, not truly a center, and just entering his second season in the NBA. Trayce Jackson-Davis, Trey Jamison, and Nate Bittle haven’t necessarily proven themselves to be quality rotational players in the NBA yet.
If Poeltl can’t put together at least 15-20 minutes of quality center play, the Raptors have a choice: play small a lot with Murray-Boyles, Scottie Barnes, and Kyle Anderson filling in at the center spot, accept subpar contributions, or force a trade to get an upgrade—which would be even more difficult if Poeltl is on a massive contract and still not playing well.
All in all, the Raptors have more riding on Jakob Poeltl’s ability to stay healthy enough to put together a decent season than feels comfortable at this point.
The Raptors need Poeltl while their center depth is so thin
Poeltl made Zach Lowe’s list of honorable mentions when he discussed players with the most pressure on them in the 2026-27 season, and it’s not even about living up to his ugly contract. At this point, Poeltl will probably never live up to his $19,500,000 salary for the 2026-27 season—or the $27,300,000 he is set to make the season after. It’s also about proving that he can still contribute to a competitive team, the he has a few more years of good basketball left in him, and that last season was just an injury-plagued down year rather than a first glimpse of the player he is now.
Poeltl’s 10.7 points, 7 rebounds, 2 assists, and 0.7 blocks per game were his lowest marks in years. He also only played 46 games and struggled immensely for most of the Raptors’ playoff series.
If he can get closer to what he produced for the Raptors in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, the team’s lack of depth behind him wouldn’t look quite as bad. Maybe it would even help rebuild some of his trade value—maybe not to a point where GMs will line up to trade for him but to a point where another front office won’t ask for an outrageous amount of draft capital to take on his contract.
Even if Poeltl puts together a bounce-back season, the Raptors would still benefit from trading him in for an upgrade. After all, once the trade for Kawhi Leonard is finalized, the Raptors will have a relatively small window to build a true championship contender around him and Barnes. They will have to produce results immediately, and we have plenty of reason to doubt Poeltl’s ability to be a consistent key contributor in that process.
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