Spurs Spurs Re-Sign Jakob Poeltl to Three-Year, $27M Contract
Jakob Poeltl will be making roughly $9M per year with the San Antonio Spurs for doing absolutely nothing the last four seasons. That is why this is the worst contract in the 2020 NBA Free Agency.
Poeltl has played in 143 games in two seasons with the San Antonio Spurs, only starting in 42 of those games, that is only 29% of the games he has played in. And it is not like Jakob Poeltl has been fantastic in those games either as he has only averaged 5.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 1.1 blocks per game the last two seasons.
Granted, the Spurs do not really have a center of the future and obviously see something in Jakob Poeltl, but there are plenty of options still available at the big man position in free agency that are well worth $9M a year. Poeltl is not even close to being on the same level as some of these guys, yet earns himself a big time contract after contributing virtually nothing.
The San Antonio Spurs are on the verge of a rebuild as an organization as they missed the playoffs for the first time in two decades and have some aging veterans on expiring contracts in DeMar DeRozan, LaMarcus Aldridge and Rudy Gay. Dejounte Murray, Derrick White and Lonnie Walker all seem like core pieces of the future for the Spurs as they have been key contributors for the Spurs the last few years, unlike Poeltl.
The Spurs are going to have to roll with Jakob Poeltl as their starting center moving forward with what they are paying him, and hopefully they see something in him that NBA fans have not yet. Before joining the Spurs organization in 2018, the young center played in Toronto for two seasons and was nothing more than a bench player, much like he is with the Spurs, so for him to get paid like he just did this free agency is very questionable. Whether Spurs fans like it or not, Jakob Poeltl will be taking up $27M of the team’s payroll over the next three seasons and hopefully he will be worth it for San Antonio because if not, this will go down as a very bad contract.