Remind me why the Raptors traded Norman Powell

[DKB333]

Why did Masai trade Norman Powell?

They did not want to give him 5/95 or whatever it was. They traded him for a younger player. It did not work out but made sense at the time. What is the point of this being spoken on in 2025?

[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..?

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.

Great insight. That's why Masai sucks at extending his own/signing free agents. Had he offered Norm a 5 yr contract it might be a bargain

[Indeed]

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

We still draft good measurement players (along with stats).
Anunoby, Powell and Siakam are all with elite wingspan. Agbaji has elite max vert. We still base on physical attributes, and most likely added stats with it. There are certainly exception, like Poeltl is more based on influence.

[lebron stopper]

LOL at the "Grent just didn't work out!!!!" folks:

1) Grent showed very little beyond being able to shoot (and was extremely streaky at that). Registered totals of 3 assists and 5 turnovers across a 5-game playoff series, didn't have anywhere near the same athleticism or tools as Norm, and was not a good defender in his time in Portland. The front office should have noticed these red flags. This trade came out of nowhere and I recall folks here eventually got over the shock by falling for a bunch of curated Grent highlights and deluding themselves into thinking he could ever come close to Norm.

2) Masai threw away his first valuable asset for basically nothing in the end. Could have re-signed Norm and traded him for a bigger haul down the line (at least much more than Grent, LOL) which would expedite the Raptors' current rebuild effort, where we're currently hoping to get a top lotto pick *and* hit on it to make this current core viable.

The Grent saga gets even better though, because Masai passed up Trent+Dragic+no picks for Porzingis, then proceeded to get ripped off by the Spurs for both Thad and Poeltl...

Now, say what you will about Porzingis and his extensive injury issues*, but this is what we got instead: Thad is now out of the league (after doing nothing of note for the Raptors), the pick that was "downgraded" was used on Koloko who left the Raptors in FA thanks to his second rounder contract, and of course Poeltl at $20 million per year is a worse asset than someone on a rookie contract like Buzelis or Topic, who could have been selected with the 2024 pick that was thrown away.

So, in a way, throwing away Norm for nothing is what kickstarted Masai's years-long disasterclass that left the team's asset base nearly bereft by the end. It hurts Masai a lot more that basically everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, but he put himself in those bad positions in the first place.

*however, Masai did just trade for the injury-prone Ingram in yet another "clever" move that surely won't backfire on him...

[Duffman100]

]

LOL at the "Grent just didn't work out!!!!" folks:

1) Grent showed very little beyond being able to shoot (and was extremely streaky at that). Registered totals of 3 assists and 5 turnovers across a 5-game playoff series, didn't have anywhere near the same athleticism or tools as Norm, and was not a good defender in his time in Portland. The front office should have noticed these red flags. This trade came out of nowhere and I recall folks here eventually got over the shock by falling for a bunch of curated Grent highlights and deluding themselves into thinking he could ever come close to Norm.

2) Masai threw away his first valuable asset for basically nothing in the end. Could have re-signed Norm and traded him for a bigger haul down the line (at least much more than Grent, LOL) which would expedite the Raptors' current rebuild effort, where we're currently hoping to get a top lotto pick *and* hit on it to make this current core viable.

The Grent saga gets even better though, because Masai passed up Trent+Dragic+no picks for Porzingis, then proceeded to get ripped off by the Spurs for both Thad and Poeltl...

Now, say what you will about Porzingis and his extensive injury issues*, but this is what we got instead: Thad is now out of the league (after doing nothing of note for the Raptors), the pick that was "downgraded" was used on Koloko who left the Raptors in FA thanks to his second rounder contract, and of course Poeltl at $20 million per year is a worse asset than someone on a rookie contract like Buzelis or Topic, who could have been selected with the 2024 pick that was thrown away.

So, in a way, throwing away Norm for nothing is what kickstarted Masai's years-long disasterclass that left the team's asset base nearly bereft by the end. It hurts Masai a lot more that basically everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, but he put himself in those bad positions in the first place.

*however, Masai did just trade for the injury-prone Ingram in yet another "clever" move that surely won't backfire on him...

Wow this post makes little sense for multiple reasons.

Attributing a bunch of follow up moves as directly impacted when they are unrelated.

Assuming Norm would have got an amazing haul later when Portland traded him after for a worse package than we got.

Not seeing the totally 20/20 hindsight that trading for injury prone Porzingis = smart move. But trading for injury prone Ingram = we know it'll be bad. (Also psst KP has still missed a ton of games for them)

Also Koloko left because we waived him due to an assumed career ending situation.

[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.

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?

For sure. The trade made sense in theory, but this is the pros. You get judged by results. I get the comparison you made, but front offices have a lot more information to go off of then comparing two cars while shopping at random dealerships.

I'm not harsh on the front office for the trade, but a miss is a miss.

[SirKen]

LOL at the "Grent just didn't work out!!!!" folks:

1) Grent showed very little beyond being able to shoot (and was extremely streaky at that). Registered totals of 3 assists and 5 turnovers across a 5-game playoff series, didn't have anywhere near the same athleticism or tools as Norm, and was not a good defender in his time in Portland. The front office should have noticed these red flags. This trade came out of nowhere and I recall folks here eventually got over the shock by falling for a bunch of curated Grent highlights and deluding themselves into thinking he could ever come close to Norm.

2) Masai threw away his first valuable asset for basically nothing in the end. Could have re-signed Norm and traded him for a bigger haul down the line (at least much more than Grent, LOL) which would expedite the Raptors' current rebuild effort, where we're currently hoping to get a top lotto pick *and* hit on it to make this current core viable.

The Grent saga gets even better though, because Masai passed up Trent+Dragic+no picks for Porzingis, then proceeded to get ripped off by the Spurs for both Thad and Poeltl...

Now, say what you will about Porzingis and his extensive injury issues*, but this is what we got instead: Thad is now out of the league (after doing nothing of note for the Raptors), the pick that was "downgraded" was used on Koloko who left the Raptors in FA thanks to his second rounder contract, and of course Poeltl at $20 million per year is a worse asset than someone on a rookie contract like Buzelis or Topic, who could have been selected with the 2024 pick that was thrown away.

So, in a way, throwing away Norm for nothing is what kickstarted Masai's years-long disasterclass that left the team's asset base nearly bereft by the end. It hurts Masai a lot more that basically everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, but he put himself in those bad positions in the first place.

*however, Masai did just trade for the injury-prone Ingram in yet another "clever" move that surely won't backfire on him...

They wanted to have salary room for Giannis potentially leaving Bucks and it came down to being able to keep one of Fred or Norm.

They picked Fred...

[MoneyBall]

Norm>Harden

[DelAbbot]

LOL at the "Grent just didn't work out!!!!" folks:

1) Grent showed very little beyond being able to shoot (and was extremely streaky at that). Registered totals of 3 assists and 5 turnovers across a 5-game playoff series, didn't have anywhere near the same athleticism or tools as Norm, and was not a good defender in his time in Portland. The front office should have noticed these red flags. This trade came out of nowhere and I recall folks here eventually got over the shock by falling for a bunch of curated Grent highlights and deluding themselves into thinking he could ever come close to Norm.

2) Masai threw away his first valuable asset for basically nothing in the end. Could have re-signed Norm and traded him for a bigger haul down the line (at least much more than Grent, LOL) which would expedite the Raptors' current rebuild effort, where we're currently hoping to get a top lotto pick *and* hit on it to make this current core viable.

The Grent saga gets even better though, because Masai passed up Trent+Dragic+no picks for Porzingis, then proceeded to get ripped off by the Spurs for both Thad and Poeltl...

Now, say what you will about Porzingis and his extensive injury issues*, but this is what we got instead: Thad is now out of the league (after doing nothing of note for the Raptors), the pick that was "downgraded" was used on Koloko who left the Raptors in FA thanks to his second rounder contract, and of course Poeltl at $20 million per year is a worse asset than someone on a rookie contract like Buzelis or Topic, who could have been selected with the 2024 pick that was thrown away.

So, in a way, throwing away Norm for nothing is what kickstarted Masai's years-long disasterclass that left the team's asset base nearly bereft by the end. It hurts Masai a lot more that basically everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, but he put himself in those bad positions in the first place.

*however, Masai did just trade for the injury-prone Ingram in yet another "clever" move that surely won't backfire on him...

They wanted to have salary room for Giannis potentially leaving Bucks and it came down to being able to keep one of Fred or Norm.

They picked Fred...

While GTJ at the end of Tampa season did have a much smaller cap hold, there was still not enough cap space to max Giannis due to OG's extension kicking in. That made GTJ cap hold savings moot. Their entire plan was flawed.

[sidsid]

In hindsight, you can see how the FO sees the team and what they envision it to be at all times.

It's "do we have enough guys on the floor who can realistically help make the play-in at least?".

The only other aspect that's looked at is "should we get a little younger?".

That's it. That's the "plan".

The Norm, Siakam, OG, Jak, BI trades all fit into this. Norm was a bit older than the core. They didn't want to give Siakam his long term contract going into his 30s. BI a bit younger. Trading for Jak because they didn't see play-in level. Not trading Fred for the same reasons. OG trade to try to stay level.

Masai trying to keep the team in permanent stasis so he can try to Kawhi deal with dwindling assets at any moment.

[lebron stopper]

Attributing a bunch of follow up moves as directly impacted when they are unrelated.

They are very much related, or at least, born of the same mindset that produced the Grent trade.

Assuming Norm would have got an amazing haul later when Portland traded him after for a worse package than we got.

Did you know that teams are capable of making bad and sub-optimal trades that don't reflect a player's true worth? We just saw one a few weeks ago. If Masai kept Norm and then traded him 1-2 years in, he would get much more for him than Grent. That is a very reasonable expectation. Arguing otherwise is tantamount to saying Norm is basically a bum, which is clearly not the case.

Not seeing the totally 20/20 hindsight that trading for injury prone Porzingis = smart move. But trading for injury prone Ingram = we know it'll be bad. (Also psst KP has still missed a ton of games for them)

No, I never said it was "smart" or whatever you misinterpreted. I am just saying that (1) regardless of how I would feel about it, Porzingis (despite the injury issues he comes with) would still be much better than whatever Thad+Poeltl was, plus all the many side effects of those two trades, including bleeding more assets, like getting nothing for Grent; and (2) if you liked the Ingram trade, you can't really complain about the idea of getting Porzingis, since both are talented and bring rare skills (unlike Thad and Poeltl) but are very injury-prone.

Also Koloko left because we waived him due to an assumed career ending situation.

Which was only possible because Masai drafted Koloko in the second round instead of the first round (again, because he "downgraded the pick" via the Thad trade), so he was able to give him a non-guaranteed contract. Once again, Masai finds a way to somehow put himself in these bad situations where he loses assets for nothing.

[Los_29]

Attributing a bunch of follow up moves as directly impacted when they are unrelated.

They are very much related, or at least, born of the same mindset that produced the Grent trade.

Assuming Norm would have got an amazing haul later when Portland traded him after for a worse package than we got.

Did you know that teams are capable of making bad and sub-optimal trades that don't reflect a player's true worth? We just saw one a few weeks ago. If Masai kept Norm and then traded him 1-2 years in, he would get much more for him than Grent. That is a very reasonable expectation. Arguing otherwise is tantamount to saying Norm is basically a bum, which is clearly not the case.

Not seeing the totally 20/20 hindsight that trading for injury prone Porzingis = smart move. But trading for injury prone Ingram = we know it'll be bad. (Also psst KP has still missed a ton of games for them)

No, I never said it was "smart" or whatever you misinterpreted. I am just saying that (1) regardless of how I would feel about it, Porzingis (despite the injury issues he comes with) would still be much better than whatever Thad+Poeltl was, plus all the many side effects of those two trades, including bleeding more assets, like getting nothing for Grent; and (2) if you liked the Ingram trade, you can't really complain about the idea of getting Porzingis, since both are talented and bring rare skills (unlike Thad and Poeltl) but are very injury-prone.

Also Koloko left because we waived him due to an assumed career ending situation.

Which was only possible because Masai drafted Koloko in the second round instead of the first round (again, because he "downgraded the pick" via the Thad trade), so he was able to give him a non-guaranteed contract. Once again, Masai finds a way to somehow put himself in these bad situations where he loses assets for nothing.

Clippers have tried to trade Norm numerous times but teams were not interested. Portland got rid of him after not even a full season. So no, waiting to deal Norm would not have gotten us a better deal. It would’ve been worse given the fact he’d be locked up for 5 years.

I like Norm and I’m happy he’s been able to carve out a career as a 2nd rounder. But he’s not a valuable asset and his teams have always played better with him off the floor than on up until this season.

Masai actually has a reputation for accumulating assets, not losing them. What was the side effect of the Poeltl trade? Gaining a good center instead of Rob Dillingham? And the Thad trade? Getting cap flexibility over drafting Walker Kessler who the Jazz have already put on the block? These are nothing moves that are insignificant.

[YogurtProducer]

2) Masai threw away his first valuable asset for basically nothing in the end. Could have re-signed Norm and traded him for a bigger haul down the line (at least much more than Grent, LOL) which would expedite the Raptors' current rebuild effort, where we're currently hoping to get a top lotto pick *and* hit on it to make this current core viable.

Yes a haul! Just like Portland was able to...

Oh wait. He got salary dumped.

[YogurtProducer]

Also Koloko left because we waived him due to an assumed career ending situation.

Which was only possible because Masai drafted Koloko in the second round instead of the first round (again, because he "downgraded the pick" via the Thad trade), so he was able to give him a non-guaranteed contract. Once again, Masai finds a way to somehow put himself in these bad situations where he loses assets for nothing.

Wait... what the **** are you even talking about?

Koloko being non-guaranteed actually came to our benefit or else we would have been stuck with him if he was guaranteed.

The only players Masai has ever really lost for nothing was Lou Will once upon a time, FVV, and I guess "Koloko" (although his value was SO HIGH he only got a 2-way deal).

[ItsDanger]

Trade made more sense if you were leaning towards a rebuild. But they didn't. If Norm was traded, should have went for picks. They knew Trent would cost a similar amount but they weren't willing to go 5 years. Trent ended up being worse than I expected.

Never overpay mediocre SGs, there are too many cheaper alternatives.

[Agimat]

Some Los-t people on here talking about how GTJ is better lol

Kinda funny how some of these takes have aged lol

[SirKen]

LOL at the "Grent just didn't work out!!!!" folks:

1) Grent showed very little beyond being able to shoot (and was extremely streaky at that). Registered totals of 3 assists and 5 turnovers across a 5-game playoff series, didn't have anywhere near the same athleticism or tools as Norm, and was not a good defender in his time in Portland. The front office should have noticed these red flags. This trade came out of nowhere and I recall folks here eventually got over the shock by falling for a bunch of curated Grent highlights and deluding themselves into thinking he could ever come close to Norm.

2) Masai threw away his first valuable asset for basically nothing in the end. Could have re-signed Norm and traded him for a bigger haul down the line (at least much more than Grent, LOL) which would expedite the Raptors' current rebuild effort, where we're currently hoping to get a top lotto pick *and* hit on it to make this current core viable.

The Grent saga gets even better though, because Masai passed up Trent+Dragic+no picks for Porzingis, then proceeded to get ripped off by the Spurs for both Thad and Poeltl...

Now, say what you will about Porzingis and his extensive injury issues*, but this is what we got instead: Thad is now out of the league (after doing nothing of note for the Raptors), the pick that was "downgraded" was used on Koloko who left the Raptors in FA thanks to his second rounder contract, and of course Poeltl at $20 million per year is a worse asset than someone on a rookie contract like Buzelis or Topic, who could have been selected with the 2024 pick that was thrown away.

So, in a way, throwing away Norm for nothing is what kickstarted Masai's years-long disasterclass that left the team's asset base nearly bereft by the end. It hurts Masai a lot more that basically everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, but he put himself in those bad positions in the first place.

*however, Masai did just trade for the injury-prone Ingram in yet another "clever" move that surely won't backfire on him...

They wanted to have salary room for Giannis potentially leaving Bucks and it came down to being able to keep one of Fred or Norm.

They picked Fred...

While GTJ at the end of Tampa season did have a much smaller cap hold, there was still not enough cap space to max Giannis due to OG's extension kicking in. That made GTJ cap hold savings moot. Their entire plan was flawed.

Was it? I remember reading news here and there in which people who are more informed than me were talking about how Raptors could create the exact cap room to sign Giannis to a max contract if needed.

[Thaddy]

He's pretty bad defensively despite his wingspan. The package Portland got for him was worse than GTJ. We should have traded him for flexibility but I guess his contract implications screwed that up. It sucks the overall result of Powell was completely stopped once GTJ left for nothing.

[Boogie!]

LOL at the "Grent just didn't work out!!!!" folks:

1) Grent showed very little beyond being able to shoot (and was extremely streaky at that). Registered totals of 3 assists and 5 turnovers across a 5-game playoff series, didn't have anywhere near the same athleticism or tools as Norm, and was not a good defender in his time in Portland. The front office should have noticed these red flags. This trade came out of nowhere and I recall folks here eventually got over the shock by falling for a bunch of curated Grent highlights and deluding themselves into thinking he could ever come close to Norm.

2) Masai threw away his first valuable asset for basically nothing in the end. Could have re-signed Norm and traded him for a bigger haul down the line (at least much more than Grent, LOL) which would expedite the Raptors' current rebuild effort, where we're currently hoping to get a top lotto pick *and* hit on it to make this current core viable.

The Grent saga gets even better though, because Masai passed up Trent+Dragic+no picks for Porzingis, then proceeded to get ripped off by the Spurs for both Thad and Poeltl...

Now, say what you will about Porzingis and his extensive injury issues*, but this is what we got instead: Thad is now out of the league (after doing nothing of note for the Raptors), the pick that was "downgraded" was used on Koloko who left the Raptors in FA thanks to his second rounder contract, and of course Poeltl at $20 million per year is a worse asset than someone on a rookie contract like Buzelis or Topic, who could have been selected with the 2024 pick that was thrown away.

So, in a way, throwing away Norm for nothing is what kickstarted Masai's years-long disasterclass that left the team's asset base nearly bereft by the end. It hurts Masai a lot more that basically everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, but he put himself in those bad positions in the first place.

*however, Masai did just trade for the injury-prone Ingram in yet another "clever" move that surely won't backfire on him...

They wanted to have salary room for Giannis potentially leaving Bucks and it came down to being able to keep one of Fred or Norm.

They picked Fred...

The dollar amounts Trent and norm got were exactly the same.

[Boogie!]

He's pretty bad defensively despite his wingspan. The package Portland got for him was worse than GTJ. We should have traded him for flexibility but I guess his contract implications screwed that up. It sucks the overall result of Powell was completely stopped once GTJ left for nothing.

Another defensive argument. The guy is literally one of the most efficient scorers in the league right now. He just scored 41 points on 50/50 shooting splits.

And we’re here talking about the potential of guys like gradey dick…