At long last, Norman Powell is living up to his expanded role, his contract and all the potential the Toronto Raptors saw in him nearly three years ago.
When Norman Powell received a four-year, $42 million contract extension in 2017, he was coming off a promising second year in the league that put the former second-round pick among the Toronto Raptors‘ most promising core pieces for the future. So when he took a step backward in his third year, with Pascal Siakam earning more minutes and OG Anunoby making an immediate impact as a rookie, Powell’s potential was suddenly put on the backburner.
Even when the Raptors won the title last year and he served as a role player in his career-high 18.8 minutes per game, he was more of a spot contributor than anything. The visions of Powell being a centerpiece for the next great Raptors team faded, dissolving and metamorphosing into images of Siakam, Anunoby and Fred VanVleet instead. It was his fourth year in the league, and the playoffs should’ve been a springboard to that promising future, but in those six Finals games, he played 66 minutes total, scoring just 11 points overall on 4-of-13 shooting.
It would’ve been reasonable for Powell, head coach Nick Nurse and the rest of the Raptors fanbase to be low on his potential heading into year five, but the 26-year-old wing is finally coming into his own in a long-awaited, expanded role.
“He seems to have matured a lot this year,” Nurse said before Tuesday’s game in Phoenix. “He’s just been able to play a lot better late in games. He used to start out 1-for-6 or something and then he’d end 1-for-6. Now he’s going 1-for-6 and then somehow he’ll bang 3-4 shots straight in the fourth quarter. He’s staying with the game. He’s just saying ‘that’s the way it goes sometimes’ and he keeps playing.”
While Siakam (33 points) and Kyle Lowry (28-6-5) led the way on the stat sheet and in the fourth quarter with big plays in the Raptors’ latest win, it was Powell who stuck tiny daggers in the Phoenix Suns like an acupuncturist all night.
Finishing with 26 points on a tidy 8-of-15 shooting, Norm orchestrated a key stretch in the second quarter after Toronto found itself down by double digits and without Lowry, who had taken a hit to the eye and went to the locker room. The Suns threatened to push the lead to 20 and hand the Raptors their fourth straight loss, but Powell scored nine points in the first four minutes of the period to keep them within striking distance.
“Norm’s been great,” Lowry said. “His energy, his shooting. I think just his overall understanding of who he is and understanding that sometimes he’s gonna start, sometimes he’s not gonna start, but just playing with that energy and aggressive attacking.”
The difference between this night and some of the high-scoring nights he enjoyed last season is they’re coming more consistently now, which is apparent from a quick look at the stat sheet. Powell is averaging 15.9 points, 3.8 rebounds and 1.7 assists in 28.9 minutes per game this year, all of which are career highs.
“I take a lot of pride in preparing myself every summer to go out there and show what I can do,” Powell said. “It’s just going in there and trusting the work that I’ve continually put in over the years, that I continue to work on. Just go play and be free and just take advantage of the opportunity to show that I belong out here, and the coaches can trust me to make winning plays for the team and do whatever it takes to lay it on the line.”
The vacant minutes on the wing left behind by Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green were always going to be filled by someone, but Powell’s uptick in production isn’t just a product of more playing time; he’s earning those minutes with his efficiency and finally getting his chance to manifest the flashes of the bright future he teased in year two.
Powell’s .497/.391/.832 shooting splits while taking 5.2 long-range attempts a night are all career highs as well, with the exception of his still impressive 39.1 percent shooting from deep. And in addition to the efficiency, the duds have been fewer and farther between.
“We’ve talked about the Pascals and the Freds and the Norms and these guys that show some moments, show some explosiveness, show a big game,” Nurse explained. “What it’s about in this league — it’s not doing it every night, because that’s a too often-used cliche that nobody does, but it’s: Can you do it two out of three? Can you do it three out of four? You know, getting it to where you’re not doing it one out of four, or there’s two, and then there’s four, and then we don’t hear from you again. Some nights there’s your opportunities and some nights there’s not, but more often than not, it’s getting yourself in position to create having a good night.”
Powell is creating good nights for himself with all the attention being paid to Siakam, Lowry and VanVleet. His uptick in efficiency comes from improvement from pretty much every area of the floor. At the rim, he’s shooting 61.9 percent, slightly above the league average of 57.8 percent. From 3-point range, he’s been effective everywhere except the right corner, canning just under 40 percent of his 5.2 3s per night, which dwarfs his prior career-high of 2.8 attempts per game last year.
Looking only at the two most crucial scoring areas of the floor would overlook his potency in two other key areas, however: in transition and in the clutch.
According to NBA.com, Powell has been good for 1.24 points per possession in transition, which is tied with for the fourth-highest figure in the entire NBA among players who have logged at least 150 such possessions. He’s also shooting 58.6 percent on those possessions, the 12th-highest mark among that group.
“His open-floor driving’s much improved,” Nurse said.
As for his knack for making winning plays late in games? In 45 “clutch” minutes this season (games with a five-point differential or less in the final five minutes, per NBA.com), Powell has shot 9-for-16. That 56.3 percent conversion rate is the 18th-best mark in the league among all players with at least 15 field goal attempts in the clutch, and the only guards ahead of him on that list are Tomas Satoransky, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Ja Morant.
“Just the kind of way he’s moving around, he just looks like a confident player,” Nurse said. “Again, whether he’s 8-for-11 or 1-for-8, he still looks like a really good, confident player out there.”
Powell said the key for him has been staying locked in on what’s in front of him in any given moment, which hasn’t been easy for a guy who’s missed 20 games due to hand and shoulder injuries.
“Honestly it’s just my mental approach,” he said. “I’ve put a lot of work in on the skill side, but I think I focus a lot on my mental side and just stay on an even keel in whatever situation I’m in. Whether that’s injuries, missed shots, foul trouble, whatever it is, just staying even keel and focused on the task at hand and staying in the moment.”
After only scoring 20-plus points 12 times in his first 266 career games, Powell has now done it 15 times in his last 30. He won’t usurp Siakam as still the crown jewel of the Raptors’ draft success stories, nor will he provide the same veteran playoff experience of a Marc Gasol or Serge Ibaka. He doesn’t stack up to Siakam, Lowry or even VanVleet in the pecking order as a scorer, and Anunoby may still have him beat overall as a prospect because of his two-way ceiling.
But with all of that being said, there is a definitive place for Norman Powell on a roster that’s simultaneously contending and developing young players into leaders for the next chapter — something that was far from a given a season or two ago. This is the Norm Powell who was going to make his $10.5 average annual salary look like a steal, and whose ability to fluctuate between the starters and a sixth man microwave could be invaluable come playoff time.
Only this time around, he won’t be watching from the sideline while the Raptors contend.