Remind me why the Raptors traded Norman Powell

[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...

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

Yes, it was about contract lengths as far as I know.

Or maybe I completely misunderstood back then. Whatever, not worth wasting time on it any further.

[Indeed]

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.

Yes, it was about contract lengths as far as I know.

Or maybe I completely misunderstood back then. Whatever, not worth wasting time on it any further.

And the benefit of taking shorter contract helps us better in tanking? Other than ownership can sell off their shares, I am not seeing any bebefits, and the result showed we were worse in terms of assets.

[SirKen]

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

Yes, it was about contract lengths as far as I know.

Or maybe I completely misunderstood back then. Whatever, not worth wasting time on it any further.

And the benefit of taking shorter contract helps us better in tanking? Other than ownership can sell off their shares, I am not seeing any bebefits, and the result showed we were worse in terms of assets.

Just in case it was misunderstood, I am not defending the decision. Just explaining why I thought they decided to ship one of the two.

Also, if I had to pick one, I would have shipped Fred any day to keep Norman. I have never believed in Fred taking over the reins like this FO did. If anything, I wanted to sell high on Fred asap, keep Ibaka and look for another PG in the trade market.

[LJKO]

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

Read on Twitter

Haven't been around lately but whoever knows me knows im the biggest Norm fan here and man just watch this it hurt

[Mr.Raptorsingh]

VanVleet
Powell
Anunoby
Siakam
Poeltl

='Ship

[Merit]

This one is objectively a mistake. They chose to get younger but got the worse player in GTJ. Wish we still had Norm.

[Morris_Shatford]

When Portland flipped him to the Clips;
Was it all expiring junk + Keon Johnson or was there something else in there that I am forgetting?

[DreamTeam09]

When Portland flipped him to the Clips;
Was it all expiring junk + Keon Johnson or was there something else in there that I am forgetting?

Portland Trail Blazers received:
* Eric Bledsoe
* Justise Winslow
* Keon Johnson
* A 2025 second-round pick (via the Detroit Pistons)

* Los Angeles Clippers received:
* Norman Powell
* Robert Covington

[Merit]

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

Read on Twitter

Haven't been around lately but whoever knows me knows im the biggest Norm fan here and man just watch this it hurt

What sticks out to me here is the comment, "Let's just get a good center and see where this goes."

AKA Poeltl.

[Drakeem]

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.

To some extent, but for long term success, I can get behind the deal that makes a lot of sense on paper but doesn't pan out vs a lucky fluke that ends up being right the one time. At the very least, I can see the logical steps that went behind the move made.

I'm also not going to be too sad about a player who's been traded for poor packages several times, who the Clippers tried to trade at some point, and who is having their first great season years after the trade. Even in an alternate reality, Norm most likely gets moved by this season anyway.

[yellowknifer]

When Portland flipped him to the Clips;
Was it all expiring junk + Keon Johnson or was there something else in there that I am forgetting?

Portland Trail Blazers received:
* Eric Bledsoe
* Justise Winslow
* Keon Johnson
* A 2025 second-round pick (via the Detroit Pistons)

* Los Angeles Clippers received:
* Norman Powell
* Robert Covington

I’m still not sure why Portland did this. Absolutely fleeced. Norm always deserved more respect and a bigger role.

[hyper316]

Norm and OG (minus contract) I would gladly have back. No to FVV, Siakam

[slicedbread2]

When Portland flipped him to the Clips;
Was it all expiring junk + Keon Johnson or was there something else in there that I am forgetting?

Portland Trail Blazers received:
* Eric Bledsoe
* Justise Winslow
* Keon Johnson
* A 2025 second-round pick (via the Detroit Pistons)

* Los Angeles Clippers received:
* Norman Powell
* Robert Covington

I’m still not sure why Portland did this. Absolutely fleeced. Norm always deserved more respect and a bigger role.

Easy. Microsoft connection. Jody Allen (sister of late co-founder Paul Allen) and former CEO Steve Ballmer. The latter was eager to spend spend spend not to mention the Blazers were looking to cut salary as they were shifting towards rebuilding not to mention it was Olshey's dumb choice to have 3 6'3 guys in Lillard, C.J. and Norm starting at the same time. The final blow came when the Nuggets beat them in the 1st round with Jokic having a starting back court of Campazzo and Rivers.

Ultimately, C.J. and Norm were flipped by the new GM on orders of shedding salary during the 2022 trade deadline. The fact that Levert got Indiana a 1st+2 2nds was crazy and a lot of teams were angry that Portland gave up Norm+Covington for very little knowing that if they did their due diligence could've gotten way more for a rebuild.

[ATLTimekeeper]

VanVleet
Powell
Anunoby
Siakam
Poeltl

='Ship

Could have bought the OKC pick that became Sengun that summer.

FVV
Powell
Scottie
Siakam
Sengun

With OG off the bench. That tax bill would be epic, though

[Raps in 4]

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.

We traded a win-now player for a prospect, but then went full throttle treadmill the next two years anyway. Masai had no idea what he wanted to do from 2021-2024.

[DelAbbot]

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.

We traded a win-now player for a prospect, but then went full throttle treadmill the next two years anyway. Masai had no idea what he wanted to do from 2021-2024.

Masai got his post-championship-salary-bump new contract in 2021 and proceeded to take 2 years off doing nothing

[YogurtProducer]

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.

We traded a win-now player for a prospect, but then went full throttle treadmill the next two years anyway. Masai had no idea what he wanted to do from 2021-2024.

Didn't we trade Norm and immediately tank for Barnes..?

[Raps in 4]

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.

We traded a win-now player for a prospect, but then went full throttle treadmill the next two years anyway. Masai had no idea what he wanted to do from 2021-2024.

Didn't we trade Norm and immediately tank for Barnes..?

Yeah, and then treadmilled the next two years.

[ATLTimekeeper]

He wanted sustained success like he had before, with the existing core being Fred, Pascal and OG, and then the younger players growing under them, like Scottie, Gary, Precious.

Norm saying, 'we all talked about getting us a C' is like two years before he actually did that. I don't think it was Masai falling asleep or not knowing what he wanted, but that they thought the C position was dead for way too long and the players were burning out covering for the position.

[junot111]

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.

We traded a win-now player for a prospect, but then went full throttle treadmill the next two years anyway. Masai had no idea what he wanted to do from 2021-2024.

Didn't we trade Norm and immediately tank for Barnes..?

So many people have either forgotten history or chosen to ignore it. Without trading norm we wouldn't have scottie. Without rookie scottie helping the team win 48 wins we wouldn't have gone the win now route