It turns out that Norman Powell is actually really good now, unlike previous years where he was just okay but Raptors fans were hyping him to high heaven. It’s too bad that, now that he’s a legitimately good player, Raptors fans seem to have stopped caring about him (I see the view counts on his videos, and they are literally incapable of lying to me), but at the same time understandable. It’s WAY more fun to root for the guy who is supposed to suck but is unexpectedly decent. Like Terence Davis. Or Chris Boucher. Powell had been decent for so long that his ascent into goodness was expected, and probably overdue.
Note: if you are a Raptors fan who is going to come in here and pretend that you still care about Powell, I don’t even want to hear it. If you REALLY cared about Powell, you wouldn’t just say it, you would kindly buy time on a Russian botnet and get all my Powell vids to at least 100000 views apiece.
I’d do it myself, but there’s some wordage in the YouTube terms of service that makes me uneasy. Much better for an unrelated entity to do it.
But yeah, Powell, he’s good. 16 points per game, that’s like double what he was doing the whole rest of his career, and it doesn’t feel like he’s overexerting to do it. He’s just, you know, doing it. I’m looking at the stats, and it turns out that he’s one of the most efficient players in the league? So not only is he scoring well, but he’s scoring efficiently, as he’s 18th in the league in True Shooting Percentage, and 19th in Effective Field Goal Percentage. The amount of words in those stats confuses and enrages me (I prefer simple stuff like “point”), but in tandem, those stats mean something.
And what it means is that the Raptors organization needs to be getting their Powell statue ready for placement outside the arena.