Remind me why the Raptors traded Norman Powell

[Son Goku 25]

I didn't know where to post this, and didn't want to start a new thread.

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One of my fav raptors this hurts man. Wish we kept him.

[Tor_Raps]

Weird ass move considering Masai kept trying to win afterwards. There was talk about Powells defense but Trent is easily worse on that end.

It was one of many screw ups Masai had after 2020. Let's hope these days are done.

[Grew]

Norm is one of my favourite raptors ever. However I can't fault Masai for the trade. He got a younger player, putting up decent numbers with a lot of perceived potential. Norm was in the best stretch of his career but had always had these streaks derailed by injury in the past.

Masai tried a sell high moment, while getting younger+ keeping the ability to stay competitive. It seemed like a good business deal with minimal risk.

Gary didn't develop. Norm continued his high level of play. Unfortunate for us but the fact remains that it wasn't a bad move the day the deal was done.

Norm in Gary's place over the last years changes nothing for this team. If anything all it would have done was have us sticking to the core of Fred/Pascal/OG/Norm for a lot longer. We either end up in the same spot this season or we are still trying to compete with a lineup most agree is a treadmill type team.

The highest logical outcomes we missed out on by trading Norm is either being the 3rd or 4th seed this year with Pascal as our go to guy. Or it's us being able to extract some value out of some type of sign and trade for Norm this offseason, instead of just letting Gary walk.

Honor Norm for the things he's done here, appreciate the time he spent. Time to move forward and be excited about our new young team.

[whitehops]

firstly i'll say powell then was not the player he is today. he got better, GTJ didn't.

the way i remember it is that powell was playing better in his contract year and due for a big(ger) contract at age 27. GTJ was having a comparable breakout season but was only 22. powell kept improving while GTJ had a couple okay seasons and then started fizzling out.

hard to fault the trade at the time, i know a lot of people on this board were excited at the prospect of GTJ's potential.

[Wise80]

I get why we did it. It made sense. They got younger and thought they were going to save money.

But they missed on it. It was another miss that can be added to a very rough and long stretch of bad decisions.

Whether Masai took a step back and let Bobby do his thing, or if he was in charge. At least they seem to be back on the right track.

But **** me, there were a lot of head scratching moves over that period.

[Duffman100]

Missed trade. Sucks.

Did it impact our trajectory much? If you swap Trent with Norm, maybe we beat Philly?

Probably still make the Poeltl trade?

[PhilBlackson]

Really sucks we traded NormGod but all in all, I don't think retaining him would've made much difference either other than we might've been an even more mid team lol. Each of Fred/Norm/OG/Pascal are fantastic pieces to ADD to a championship core but they themselves are not one as a collective.

They obviously should've at least had the convo with Norm & his agent first before deciding to trade him but hindsight is always 20/20 and again I don't think it would've changed much to where we are now and might have actually only further delayed it. He'll always be a beloved Raptor but I don't hold it against the FO because I get that they were taking a flyer on Gary/trying to better balance the books and it just didn't work out.

Too bad they couldn't do a banner for the Bench Mob lol

[CoinTossRoss31]

Norm for Trent trade was a miss and I get it.

Only thing that hurts more in hindsight is the fact he didn't get a big pay raise like some were worried of and that he would've been happy at probably 15 - 18m x3 we ended up giving Trent

[bonjovi0308]

It's like after the champion year front office started to get their hands off the wheel. They should have had talked to Norm's agent as due diligence on how much he might want..?

[RoteSchroder]

Really sucks we traded NormGod but all in all, I don't think retaining him would've made much difference either other than we might've been an even more mid team lol. Each of Fred/Norm/OG/Pascal are fantastic pieces to ADD to a championship core but they themselves are not one as a collective.

They obviously should've at least had the convo with Norm & his agent first before deciding to trade him but hindsight is always 20/20 and again I don't think it would've changed much to where we are now and might have actually only further delayed it. He'll always be a beloved Raptor but I don't hold it against the FO because I get that they were taking a flyer on Gary/trying to better balance the books and it just didn't work out.

Too bad they couldn't do a banner for the Bench Mob lol

Upon breaking up FVV/Siakam/OG/Powell, we would have gotten a lot more in return for trading Powell than we did for GTJr

Powell was also showing major signs of improved shooting in Toronto. GTJr had a bit of tunnel vision and his offense wasn't very versatile, which is why Portland traded him in the first place

[PhilBlackson]

Really sucks we traded NormGod but all in all, I don't think retaining him would've made much difference either other than we might've been an even more mid team lol. Each of Fred/Norm/OG/Pascal are fantastic pieces to ADD to a championship core but they themselves are not one as a collective.

They obviously should've at least had the convo with Norm & his agent first before deciding to trade him but hindsight is always 20/20 and again I don't think it would've changed much to where we are now and might have actually only further delayed it. He'll always be a beloved Raptor but I don't hold it against the FO because I get that they were taking a flyer on Gary/trying to better balance the books and it just didn't work out.

Too bad they couldn't do a banner for the Bench Mob lol

Upon breaking up FVV/Siakam/OG/Powell, we would have gotten a lot more in return for trading Powell than we did for GTJr

Agreed.

I can definitely be critical about our FO with a lot of things but I think this was a honest enough mistake. It's not like they traded him for an expiring. They thought Gary showed some promise that they thought they could get more out of and were wrong, it happens.

[RoteSchroder]

Really sucks we traded NormGod but all in all, I don't think retaining him would've made much difference either other than we might've been an even more mid team lol. Each of Fred/Norm/OG/Pascal are fantastic pieces to ADD to a championship core but they themselves are not one as a collective.

They obviously should've at least had the convo with Norm & his agent first before deciding to trade him but hindsight is always 20/20 and again I don't think it would've changed much to where we are now and might have actually only further delayed it. He'll always be a beloved Raptor but I don't hold it against the FO because I get that they were taking a flyer on Gary/trying to better balance the books and it just didn't work out.

Too bad they couldn't do a banner for the Bench Mob lol

Upon breaking up FVV/Siakam/OG/Powell, we would have gotten a lot more in return for trading Powell than we did for GTJr

Agreed.

I can definitely be critical about our FO with a lot of things but I think this was a honest enough mistake. It's not like they traded him for an expiring. They thought Gary showed some promise that they thought they could get more out of and were wrong, it happens.

I think based on: 1) stats (GTJr with low FTA and being weak inside the 3 point arc), 2) game tape, and 3) Portland willing to be rid of him (Lillard made some offhand comments directed at GTJr's lack of versatility after the trade), they could have done a better evaluation of GTJr as a player.

I wonder if Masai's ability to evaluate guards isn't that great.

[ciueli]

It's like after the champion year front office started to get their hands off the wheel. They should have had talked to Norm's agent as due diligence on how much he might want..?

They knew exactly what he wanted, that's why he was traded. He got a 5 year contract and Masai wasn't handing out 5 year contracts at that point, even Pascal didn't get a 5 year contract. They traded for Gary because they could pay him less and get him on a 3 year contract extension, Masai at that point was very averse to handing out long term money.

[PhilBlackson]

Upon breaking up FVV/Siakam/OG/Powell, we would have gotten a lot more in return for trading Powell than we did for GTJr

Agreed.

I can definitely be critical about our FO with a lot of things but I think this was a honest enough mistake. It's not like they traded him for an expiring. They thought Gary showed some promise that they thought they could get more out of and were wrong, it happens.

I think based on: 1) stats (GTJr with low FTA and being weak inside the 3 point arc), 2) game tape, and 3) Portland willing to be rid of him (Lillard made some offhand comments directed at GTJr's lack of versatility after the trade), they could have done a better evaluation of GTJr as a player.

I wonder if Masai's ability to evaluate guards isn't that great.

Maybe so...BUT I mean they did draft Norm lol

I also think so far JaKobe looks really promising and they also ended up finding some really good value out of Ochai. BUT I do get what you're saying considering they've whiffed on TRoss, Gary and maaaybe even Gradey in terms of finding a true starting caliber SG. I think JaKobe at least has the potential to be an equivalent player long term, will he become that is on him & the staff.

They definitely f'd up by trading Norm though, I don't think anyone can or does dispute that really.

[Duffman100]

Upon breaking up FVV/Siakam/OG/Powell, we would have gotten a lot more in return for trading Powell than we did for GTJr

Agreed.

I can definitely be critical about our FO with a lot of things but I think this was a honest enough mistake. It's not like they traded him for an expiring. They thought Gary showed some promise that they thought they could get more out of and were wrong, it happens.

I think based on: 1) stats (GTJr with low FTA and being weak inside the 3 point arc), 2) game tape, and 3) Portland willing to be rid of him (Lillard made some offhand comments directed at GTJr's lack of versatility after the trade), they could have done a better evaluation of GTJr as a player.

I wonder if Masai's ability to evaluate guards isn't that great.

Didn't masai acquire Norm to begin with?

[Potential]

This city really loves Norm. One of the most beloved Raptors ever. Wish we could've kept him for life

[SFour]

It was a mistake, I'm sure the Raptors FO regrets it....but mistakes happen, can't expect a perfect record.

[whitehops]

I get why we did it. It made sense. They got younger and thought they were going to save money.

But they missed on it. It was another miss that can be added to a very rough and long stretch of bad decisions.

Whether Masai took a step back and let Bobby do his thing, or if he was in charge. At least they seem to be back on the right track.

But **** me, there were a lot of head scratching moves over that period.

this isn't meant at you directly because i think a lot of people make this statement in life but especially in sports...

but i think it's important to distinguish bad result from bad decision (hindsight is 20/20, blah blah). with pretty much any decision you make in life there are a number of variables of which you don't know the outcome beforehand. in this case i think the decision was sturdy, but the result ended up being that the 27 year powell developed a lot more than the 22 year old GTJ, who regressed. that was a big variable and not one that ended in the raps favour.

let's say you're buying a used 2021 civic and you have an option between two with similar specs, no accident history, similar mileage, etc. and the one you pick has a transmission problem a year later while the other runs fine. did you make a bad decision? or was it just a crappy result?

[Los_29]

33 year old Powell. Fits perfectly with our “timeline.”

[RoteSchroder]

Agreed.

I can definitely be critical about our FO with a lot of things but I think this was a honest enough mistake. It's not like they traded him for an expiring. They thought Gary showed some promise that they thought they could get more out of and were wrong, it happens.

I think based on: 1) stats (GTJr with low FTA and being weak inside the 3 point arc), 2) game tape, and 3) Portland willing to be rid of him (Lillard made some offhand comments directed at GTJr's lack of versatility after the trade), they could have done a better evaluation of GTJr as a player.

I wonder if Masai's ability to evaluate guards isn't that great.

Didn't masai acquire Norm to begin with?

Yeah and Shead was a good pick too. Delon, Malachi, Powell, Shead were all fairly productive two-way college players (5+ BPM). Ja’Kobe was a really safe pick, but I think there will likely be players taken after him that turn out better.

In terms of the draft, after the Bruno disaster and completely idiotic pick in Deandre Daniels, the draft selections became heavily boxscore/stats based with the use of IBM Watson. Not sure if the same methodologies are used in trades. E.g. they likely didn’t do any statistical analysis for the Thad trade