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NBA DRAFT 2016

June 23, 2016

Jakob Poeltl

Brooklyn, New York

THE MODERATOR: Opening statements about what you'll bring to the Raptors, please.

JAKOB POELTL: First of all, I'm super excited to be here, to be in this situation. I'm so excited that the Toronto Raptors put their trust in me. I think I can be a guy who's out there always fighting, always trying to get better. I think I'm far from done being a player like I can improve a lot I feel like, and I hope I can help out this organization these next couple years.

Q. Delon Wright, your teammate last year in Toronto, what have you heard about Toronto from him? And are you excited about the prospect of playing with him?
JAKOB POELTL: I'm super stoked about that. It's so great to know that I'm already going to have somebody there that I know that's my friend, and I talk to him a lot throughout this process and he's told me only good things about Toronto. It's like an unbelievable feeling right now.

Q. A fellow European center over there in Toronto in Valanciunas. What do you expect to learn from him and how do you think you'll play together?
JAKOB POELTL: I hope I can really learn a lot from him. I think him being in a similar situation, I guess, or I guess I can learn a lot from the way he improved as a player like the path he had, I think I can take on a really similar path by learning from him, playing against him every day in practice. It should be amazing. I'm really looking forward to it.

Q. Both of your parents played on the Austrian volleyball team. Did you play much volleyball? What made you choose basketball over volleyball?
JAKOB POELTL: I actually started playing basketball when I was six years old, and I never really played volleyball. I obviously played it with my parents like in my free time from time to time, but I was always set on basketball. That was my love. That was my sport, and they actually tried a couple times to get me over to volleyball, but there was no chance. I was stuck with basketball.

Q. Being drafted into a team that had so much success in the Playoffs last year, does that put any added pressure in you coming in and wanting to perform or does that create an environment in which you can develop into an even better player?
JAKOB POELTL: I think it's an amazing opportunity for me to be on a winning team, a team that had an amazing season like the Toronto Raptors had last season. I can learn from a lot of these guys that have had success in the NBA and are really good NBA players, and I think they can set a great example for guys like me, young guys coming in, and like I said, to be able to learn from them. That's really what I'm looking forward to.

Q. There's been talk on the workout trail that you actually emerged as one of the better shooters of the big men in your range. How have you been working to extend your shooting range out beyond the three-point line?
JAKOB POELTL: These last couple of months I've been working on it a lot. Yeah, it's just something I never really did in college. I didn't work on it too much. I worked on a lot of aspects of my game, and now that I've finished the season and I've started working out, I'm preparing for the draft and the next NBA season, the Summer League. I've started shooting a lot more, and I've noticed some quick improvement. So I really hope I can be or become a better shooter fast and stretch the floor a little bit more.

Q. Are you expecting to like immediately in the league be able to shoot from the outside?
JAKOB POELTL: I mean, I'm not going to be a stretch 5 next year, but I really hope -- I'm just hoping for like a constant improvement like from year to year get better at it, get more comfortable with that 17, 19-foot jump shot. That's so important for a big guy to be able to knock down right now.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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