NBA pioneer Pöltl:

“It hurts me a little to watch!”

Jakob Pöltl starts his ninth season in the billion-dollar NBA on Thursday night. The 2.13 meter tall Viennese told the "Krone" what he hopes to achieve in sports, when he got his last speeding ticket, what is much more expensive in Toronto than in Vienna and when he gets a stomach ache while watching TV.

At 29, Jakob Pöltl is one of the veterans in the Toronto Raptors team, and in a year of further development, experts see the Canadian team in sporting no-man's land. "We have the potential to surprise, we have more in us than people think," says the Viennese, who is in the second year of an 80 million dollar contract.