For longtime fans of the Toronto Raptors, there’s often been a lot of second-guessing as to how exactly the team navigated the years following their 2019 NBA title win.
And for Norman Powell, who was traded away to the Portland Trail Blazers in 2021 after being a pivotal bench piece of that playoff run, there’s been a lot of “what-if” thinking in the four years since he left the Raptors.
“The fans still talk about [that era], especially that year after we won the championship,” Powell said to the Young Man And The Three podcast, released earlier this month.
Powell said he’d received reassurance from his agent in the minutes leading up to the 2021 trade deadline that he’d be staying in Toronto, before he got the sudden shocking news that he’d been sent to Portland in exchange for Gary Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood.
“I just got off the phone, they said I’m good,” Powell recalled. “I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what call to pick up… it was a crazy time.”
Powell had started 31 of 42 games that year for Toronto, the highest rate of his career at that point.
“There were talks and stuff that that me, Fred [VanVleet], and Pascal [Siakam] had about taking over the reins… it’s time for us to really step up and do our thing,” Powell said. “Everybody was super shocked when I was traded at that deadline.”
At the time of the trade from Toronto, Powell was also averaging a career-high 19.6 points per game and imagined his long-term future would be in Toronto.
“Everything was starting to come together the way I envisioned it. So when I got traded, I was really hurt, I was really emotional. I held it together pretty well on the phone calls and things like that, but once I went into the office and saw the guys and everything, I just broke down, because I was going to be without my boys that I built this brotherhood with… all the emotions just came flooding out.”
Though Powell ended up signing a four-year deal with the Trail Blazers — who eventually shipped him to the Los Angeles Clippers — he believes that the Raptors front office could’ve simply signed him to a new deal rather than trading him.
“They could have paid me what they paid Gary Trent and kept the band together. I know people were worried like, ‘Oh, I was going to demand like super high max [contract]’ and this and the other, but for me, I wanted to be with my boys. [I thought] let’s go to the negotiation and see like what’s beneficial for both sides.”
Trent Jr. signed a deal with Toronto worth US$17.2 million per year over three seasons in the summer of 2021, while Powell signed a five-year deal worth US$18 million per season with Portland.
Powell believes the Raptors front office could’ve kept him and added more pieces around the core at the time, rather than trading him away for a younger player like Trent, who is five years his junior.
“Let’s just get a good centre and see where we can take this… that was our mentality,” Powell added. “I’m not saying we’re going to win a championship and we’re all going to be All-Stars…. but we had the ability to be really competitive in an Eastern Conference and be a top-four, top-five team, get some more of the pieces, and we could see what’s up.”
