Powell trade proving to be another misstep for floundering Raptors

The retelling of the unravelling of the Toronto Raptors could begin in many places, but since the Los Angeles Clippers were at Scotiabank Arena on Friday night, let’s start with the decision to trade Norm Powell.

Remember? It was a last-minute deal that came just before the close of business at the trade deadline in 2021, the year the Raptors didn’t trade Kyle Lowry when everyone thought they would.

The thinking behind trading Powell at the time made good sense. Powell, then 27, was in the midst of what was then his best offensive season, averaging 19.6 points a game and shooting 43.9 per cent from three on more than six attempts a game for a Raptors team that hadn’t quite started their tank in Tampa.

He was likely heading for free agency and the Raptors were leery of signing him to the kind of contract he was going to be looking for.

They made the deal with the Portland Trail Blazers, who were trying to make a playoff push, and in return picked up Gary Trent Jr. (and Rodney Hood, who was included mainly to make the money work).

The premise: trade for a younger, comparable player (Trent was 22 and shooting 39 per cent from three for Portend that season) and see if the Raptors could benefit from the same development curve Powell had shown, and presumably for less money.

Neither Trent Jr. or Powell were significant factors in what ended up being a 127-107 win for the Clippers that was never really in doubt from the opening moments of the first quarter. Fellow former Raptor Kawhi Leonard and Powell both got nice ovations when they hit the floor at Scotiabank Arena but the crowd didn’t have much to get excited about after that. Los Angeles led by 10 at the end of the first quarter and Toronto trailed by as many as 19 in the second quarter and 21 in the third.

The loss was the eighth in nine games for the Raptors as they fell to 16-29 on the season. They start a six-game road trip in Atlanta on Sunday. The Clippers improved to 29-14 and 26-7 since a 3-7 start as they gain momentum as a title contender in the Western Conference.  James Harden led the Clippers with 22 points and 13 assists as Los Angeles shot 50.5 per cent from the floor and converted 22-of-24 free throws. The Raptors got 23 points from Scottie Barnes, who shot 9-of-21 from the floor, while RJ Barrett added 22. Toronto shot 45.8 per cent from the floor, 6-of-32 from three and just 13-of-22 from the free-throw line.

Powell had a three and breakaway dunk late in the fourth quarter when the Raptors had cut the Clippers' lead to nine with 2:18 to play. Powell finished with 17 points on 13 shots. Trent Jr. had 13 points on his 13 attempts.

Perhaps the most encouraging thing for the Raptors was that the game featured another promising outing from rookie Gradey Dick, who has now strung together three consecutive double-digit minutes games with some nice moments in each one. On Friday, the 20-year-old from Kansas finished with six points, four rebounds, two assists and a steal in 21 minutes. He got hit with a flagrant foul on a Harden three-point attempt, but it was a case of a rookie learning at the feet of a master. More moments like that can only help this season. He tried to take a charge on Russell Westbrook and failed, but managed to take one on Powell. It’s all baby steps.

“Right now our wins are those small gains in small experiences,” said Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic. “It shows that guys are improving.”

As the Raptor rebuild begins in earnest, there will be plenty of opportunities for those kind of victories, if not the real ones.

How Toronto arrived here after a run of seven straight playoff appearances and eight in nine years still seems kind of shocking.

Like so many decisions that have been made in the past four years, trading Powell was defensible in the moment, but as time has moved along, it hasn’t quite worked out as might have been expected.

Why? Well, first of all, Powell has kept improving. He arrived back in Toronto, where he played the first five-plus seasons of his career, as a vital component of Clippers rotation that is both excellent and deep.

Powell is their sixth man and a regular fixture in the fourth-quarter lineups, which is no small feat considering that with Leonard, Paul George and Russell Westbrook on the team, the Clippers have four potential hall-of-famers soaking up minutes.

Powell is one of the most efficient scorers not only on the Clippers, but across the entire league, averaging 13.5 points per game in 26 minutes off the bench and shooting 54.4 per cent on twos, 45.3 per cent on threes and 87.5 per cent from the free-throw line. Powell’s True Shooting percentage of 64.6 is seventh among all non-centres.

When Clippers head coach Ty Lue was coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers and coming up against the Raptors in the post-season, Powell was a transition terror with a shaky jumper, a flaw that had saw him slide to the second round in the 2015 draft after four seasons at UCLA.

“When I was in Cleveland, he was a strong right-hand driver who could make a shot, he was more of a defender back then too,” said Lue. “But Norm has worked so hard at his game, he can pretty much score at every level – the in-between game, can shoot the floaters. On catch-and-shoot right now, he’s shooting a crazy percentage in the corners, and then in the fourth quarter we rely on him to make big shots.

“He's had to change his game a lot, not having the ball in his hand, not relying on pick-and-rolls, playing off catch-and-shoots and attacking closeouts, but the work he puts in, he can play in all different phases of the game.”

None of it came by accident. Powell’s shooting workouts with the Raptors were numerous and intense. He got his shots up in volume and at game speed. His habits have carried over with the Clippers. He’s known for starting the first of his three daily off-season workouts as 6 a.m. in Las Vegas, where he lives in the summers.

The results are self-evident. He’s shooting 41.2 per cent from three over the past five seasons, fifth best among players with at least 1,500 attempts.

“I think it speaks to two different things,” said Powell when we spoke about it. “Even if you're a four-year [college] player, you can still improve. I know if you got like the right approach and mindset towards the game and are willing to work on your weaknesses, you can make them your strengths.

“And then it just speaks to like my mentality and approach. Even when I was in Toronto and the things people were saying I was struggling with, I would try to make them better and try to make my strengths stronger.

"And I continue to work. I don't look at the stats, I don't look at any of that, you know, I just know and have high expectations for myself and continue to grind and want to get the most out of my opportunity being here, to be the best player I can be and that comes with the grind, sacrifice and putting in a time to improve your game.”

Seriously, the Raptors traded this guy? But here’s the kicker: Trent Jr. remains younger – amazingly the six-year veteran is still just 25 years old – but he never ended up being cheaper or better. He’s in the last year of three-year contract for $52 million and is earning $18.6 million this season. Powell did end up signing a five-year deal after he was traded, but it averaged out to $18 million per year. He’s earning less than Trent Jr. this season and has two years left on his contract.

Friday night wasn’t much, as referendums go. Powell’s role with the Clippers is as game-breaker in tight contests, so his services were mostly redundant.

Trent Jr. got the start as the Raptors were without both Immanuel Quickley (thigh) and Jakob Poeltl (ankle) and was fine after an initial flurry where he missed a floater and wide-open three, and fumbled a lay-up in transition.

How much longer Trent Jr. remains a Raptor is an open question. Even if the rest of his game hasn’t really taken off in Toronto,  he remains a good three-point shooter – heading into Friday’s game he was averaging 41.7 per cent from deep on 5.5 attempts a game, 13^th among shooters with at least 200 attempts this season – and when engaged he’s a passable defender. Given he’s a pending free agent, it’s not hard to imagine a team in need of shooting – and there are plenty of them – trying to pry Trent Jr. away from the Raptors. But unless the return is noteworthy – a decent first-round pick? A useful rotation player? – the Raptors may end up signing him to a new contract, given his age and his specialty.

It’s never one move that sees a team slide into a rebuild as the Raptors have finally committed to doing, but a lot of smaller ones that don’t work out quite as intended.

But if the question is would the Raptors have been better off just keeping Powell, who has evolved into a superb role player on an elite team, rather than trading him for Trent Jr., it seems to me that the best player in that long ago deal – and the one with the more favourable contract, ironically – is playing in Los Angeles, not Toronto.