NBA free agency 2023: Jakob Poeltl returning to Raptors on $80M deal

Jakob Poeltl has agreed to a four-year, $80 million contract to return to the Toronto Raptors, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, taking one of the best available big men off the market early in the NBA’s 2023 free-agency period.

The 27-year-old Poeltl averaged 12.5 points, 9.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.2 blocks in 26.5 minutes per game across 72 appearances last season for both the San Antonio Spurs, with whom he began the season, and the Toronto Raptors, who brought Poeltl into the fold at February’s trade deadline.

The swap marked a homecoming of sorts for Poeltl, whom the Raptors drafted out of Utah with the ninth overall pick in 2016. The 7-footer spent his first two seasons in Toronto, developing from a lightly used reserve into a stalwart member of a dynamic second unit featuring future All-Stars Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet.

After being shipped to San Antonio in the summer 2018 swap that made Kawhi Leonard a Raptor, Poeltl earned a starting job and became one of the NBA’s better defensive centers, routinely ranking among the league leaders in block percentage and defensive field-goal percentage allowed at the rim. He’s proven to be a strong offensive rebounder and interior finisher, both at the rim and from floater range, shooting better than 60% from the field in each of the past six seasons. He has also showcased a deft playmaking touch from the elbows and as a short-roll connector; among centers to log at least 1,500 total minutes over the past four seasons, Poeltl ranks 21st in assist percentage, just behind Anthony Davis, Isaiah Hartenstein and Kevon Looney.

Poeltl’s game rarely leaps off the screen, but his teams always seem to defend better and outscore their opponents when he plays. That’s why Raptors team president Masai Ujiri reached out to bring him back in February, sending veteran Khem Birch, a top-six-protected 2024 first-round pick and a pair of second-round picks to San Antonio in hopes that his once-and-future center could help make sense out of an underwhelming Toronto team that rarely seemed to become greater than the sum of its parts.

It worked: The Raptors went 15-11 after bringing back Poeltl, ranking ninth in defensive efficiency and outscoring opponents by nearly nine points per 100 non-garbage-time possessions with him on the floor. As helpful as his play was, though, it wasn’t enough to get Toronto over .500 or past old pal DeMar DeRozan (and his daughter Diar) as the Raptors fell to the visiting Bulls in the opening game of the play-in tournament. Even that disappointing ending offered an example of Poeltl’s value, though; Toronto outscored Chicago by six points in Poeltl’s 37 minutes, but was blitzed by 10 in the 11 he was on the bench.