San Antonio is, in the eyes of the public, the best place for Euro role-players to go if they want to jumpstart their career. So, if any of them even noticed that Jakob Poeltl went southward (way southward), they probably thought “Oh, Pop will turn him into a double-double machine, not like I have any good will towards that concept because Westbrook has turned me into a triple-double whore”. I admit, I started to have thoughts like those, but then I remembered that Gregg Popovich totally misused Aron Baynes (who is an honorary Euro) and is currently misusing Davis Bertans.
So it doesn’t surprise me at all the Poeltl is getting marginalized. He was good in Toronto, and benefited from being a draft prospect who they had an incentive to develop. Once he got traded, there was no special connection between him and the Spurs, so he languishes, underused and forgotten.
I mean, not like he was ever that amazing in the first place. But he’s SOLID. Rock solid. Get him the ball where he can do something with it (which is exclusively right next to the basket), and he’ll score. But the Spurs’ lack of talent top-to-bottom is starting to show, and he doesn’t get to play in lineups with a bunch of other good players like in Toronto. And that hurts, for a guy like him.