Poeltl wasn't picking through his words carefully in order to not give the game away. He basically just said the team didn't given any indication he was going to be moved and were planning on him playing the year with them. This was supposedly during the time where SA was falling all over themselves trying to move him. I doubt they'd've lied to him or that he would've lied for them if they were really as keen to make a move as we had been led to believe. We were supposed to believe the Spurs were absolutely not going to go into the season with Poeltl, whereas Jakob said they weren't planning on moving him. It's parsimonious to believe he was telling the truth rather than assuming a bunch of things happened behind the scenes.
The line isn't that blurry though. Everything we've actually heard from the organization suggests a team that was willing to take a step back and even realistically believe it will take a step back but that wasn't banking on it. Fans who want the team to tank took that and assumed that the team had the goal of losing games to win the lotto. That wasn't a universal interpretation of what was going on at the time. Some of us did not think the Spurs were trying to lose more than they were just getting value out of Murray. I think for the most part, we all just assumed that they'd be bad to the point that they'd lose games even if they were trying their hardest to win. But when it came down to question like which players to cut, whether Jones or Primo would be the starter or if the prospect of Primo or KBD/Roby breaking out would be a bad thing for the team, it was clear that there's a division between folks who WANT the team to lose games and folks who just accepted the team's talent would lose games. That the team is winning games so far is making that line sharper, not blurrier.
I don't think Brian Wright is trying to lose either. Most GMs don't have luxury of too many losing seasons, and he's had quite a few so far. People also assume Pop would want to make all these win-now moves, but that hasn't been his style in more than a decade. If anything, the team has avoided being aggressive in situations they could've been so. Some accused them of not "picking a lane" because they never really went for it after Leonard despite not completely rebuilding either. You can argue that without Jrue Holidaying Keldon they were never truly serious about tanking. What I see is a team that is willing to wait until the deadline to decide what it wants to do. I don't see them winning enough to where tanking isn't still an option in February, and if they are at that level or lower, I would predict them moving the guys. If they lose enough, that could happen by December 15th. If they're winning though, I could see them looking to be stealth buyers with their cap space and minor picks.