By: apa
Jakob Pöltl signed a new contract with his NBA team Toronto Raptors. The Viennese signed the Canadian club for an additional four years and $ 104 million (88.7 million euros), as its press management announced on Tuesday. Specifically, the 29-year-old center pulled his player option for the 2026/27 season and added another three seasons by 2030. Pöltl is Austria’s only player in the world’s best basketball league.
“I am very happy to be able to extend the raptors. We have built up a really cool team over the past few years and are still in the process. “I feel extremely comfortable in the city and I think we have the best fans in the league. I am pleased that everything is dry,” he added.
Pöltl was selected by the raptors in the ninth in the NBA draft in 2016, in the NBA draft in 2016 and later debuted in the league in the same year. In 2018 he followed the San Antonio Spurs, in which he was active until February 2023. Then he moved back to Toronto.
Play-off return big goal
The raptors with Pöltl now missed the play-offs three times in a row. The Canadian team succeeded in the only NBA title to date in summer 2019 when Pöltl played in San Antonio. In the past season, the 2.13 meter tall Austrian achieved new career best values with 14.5 points, 9.6 rebounds and 1.2 steals per game, but in between he was also slowed down by injuries and only came to 57 games.
In the current team of the not undisputed chief coach Darko Rajaković, in addition to Pöltl, the Forwards Scottie Barnes and Brandon Ingram set the tone. In Draft 2025, the raptors surprisingly won 20-year-old Collin Murray-Boylees, who could be used in the forward or center position.
Top -earning Austrian athlete
Around Pöltl repeatedly ranked. Most recently, it was speculated during the season that the Los Angeles Lakers could sign him. A change in the next few years will be unlikely. Because the new contract is an expression of mutual appreciation and financially of a scope that NBA competitors would not be so easy to do.
In the 2026/27 season, Pöltl will earn $ 19.5 million, in the following three years $ 28.17 million. The 29-year-old should also rise to the best paid Austrian athletes in history, at least if you use the fixed salary as a criterion. He only threatens danger from NFL professional Bernhard Raimann from the Indianapolis Colts, who will negotiate a new contract after his Rookie Treaty in 2026. It could be monetary in the spheres of Pöltl.
Brought from film dinosaurs to life
The Toronto Raptors were founded in 1995 when the NBA with the Vancouver Grizzlies placed a second Canadian team on the map. The name owes the dinosaur hype of the 1990s. In the cinema hit “Jurassic Park” (1993), the always aggressive raptors played the actual leading role in addition to the Tyrannosaurus Rex. The formative figure in the beginning of the Raptors was the young Vince Carter, who was also baptized by the media because of his spectacular style of play “Air Canada”.
