VIENNA — In February 2010, at age 14, Jakob Poeltl attended an N.B.A. game, his first, between the Knicks and the Washington Wizards at Madison Square Garden.

Even for Poeltl, a basketball-obsessed teenager who eclipsed his competition at home in both size and ability, a follow-up trip to the Garden without a ticket seemed unfathomable at the time.

In Vienna, young athletes rarely harbor N.B.A. dreams.

Almost six years later, Poeltl returned to the Garden on Saturday, scoring 19 points and grabbing 14 rebounds for Utah in a 77-75 victory over No. 7 Duke in the Ameritas Insurance Classic. Poeltl may soon be making regular visits to N.B.A. arenas after blossoming from infertile basketball soil into a possible lottery pick in next year’s draft, which would make him the first Austrian-born player in N.B.A. history.

“I try not to pay too much attention to it, but it’s obviously around,” Poeltl said by phone last week about his rising pro stock, bolstered by his averages of 19.1 points — on 70.2 percent shooting — and 9.9 rebounds this season. “I guess either way it’s a good thing, too. The hype around myself, especially back in Austria, people back home have been telling me basketball is in the news way more often now. Even little kids get exposed to it.”