Kabookalu wrote:DieYoung wrote:AustrianHamm3r wrote:What happened with Jakob? Obviously had 3 Fouls in 7 Minutes, but why he didn't return?
Pretty obvious I think. The dude sucks right now. He looks overwhelmed at times and wasn't all that great in preseason either. He's looking like a Mahinmi style bust for the Spurs currently(good size but foul prone and low bball iq). He has a nice safety net being on the Spurs though. They gave Mahinmi years of chances before giving up on him. Same thing with that french loser Livio. For some reason, Spurs front office is overly forgiving towards these soft Euro prospects.
Personally I don't think Yak has what it takes to be a full time center. His gifts lie in how well he can roam around with his amazing mobility for a 7'1 guy, but he's not the kind of center that carves out space inside. He tends to do his best when the other team is running a perimeter oriented center or they're going small, and that's when he doesn't have to battle it out with anyone inside. It's popular to believe that traditional centers are dead, but I don't think that's true. The league is seeing a renaissance in quality center play, and I wouldn't want Poeltl fighting it out with the likes of Ayton, Towns, Embiid, Whiteside, Gobert, etc.
He really should play PF I think.
Therein lies the problem with Poeltl. If he can't play against opposing centers, that forces Aldridge to handle that duty...which is just going to tire him out. LMA already played 45 mins the other night because Poeltl was trash and not good enough to earn those minutes. The only other alternative is Gasol who's on the wrong side of 30, a defensive liability, and not motivated half the time. I've never been a fan of this guy, especially when the Spurs already have a decent center stashed in Europe in Milutinov.