I don’t know why I was expecting a Jokic-esque passing performance from Jakob “Blake Griffin’s Hillbilly Cousin” Poeltl when I looked at the boxscore tonight. Actually, I do know why: because he’s a Euro. He’s not really a Euro, though. Euros in the NBA come from former Yugoslav countries, or Lithuania, or from German/Spain/France/Italy. Austria doesn’t count as a Euro country when it comes to the NBA. Neither does Finland, or Estonia, or Iceland. The players from those countries, when they do miraculously appear, are merely “foreign-born”.
Poeltl is also not a Euro because he can’t shoot jumpers. Euros are supposed to, by virtue of their egalitarian training regimens that emphasize skill at all positions, be able to shoot jumpers. This means that Rudy Gobert is also not a Euro, and I agree with that assessment. Euro = jumpers.
Poeltl had a heck of a game tonight, even if his assists were sort of lame, as a member of the Raptors bench that somehow is greater than the sum of its parts. I don’t think it’s fair that Toronto gets to just rest its starters huge chunks of the game while the bench has its way with opposing scrubs, but congrats to them anyway. Poeltl’s solidity in most aspects of the game helps them a lot, I think. Maybe you could even say he is carrying them. Yeah. He could totally carry Fred VanVleet wherever he wanted.