Norman Powell on breakout season: Always knew I would “score like Kobe” – Basketball Insider

Norman Powell is one of the most surprising players early in the 2024-25 NBA season.

The 10-year veteran and 31-year-old shooting guard has long been considered a reliable role player and has recently emerged as one of the league's top sixth men.

After winning a championship with the Toronto Raptors in 2019 as a key role player, Powell has since become a scorer averaging nearly 20 points per game and has ranked fourth in Sixth Man of the Year voting over the past few years.

This season, however, is different – he's surpassed three-time scoring champion James Harden to become the Clippers' leading scorer (23.7 points per game), helping Los Angeles stay afloat in the absence of Kawhi Leonard state (16 wins, 12 losses).

The results were surprising considering the Clippers lost their best player in Leonard and were coming off an offseason in which they lost two key stars in Paul George and Russell Westbrook, but Powell always believed in him Ability to make an impact in the NBA.

“Yeah, those are my expectations for myself,” Powell told Basketball Insider. “When people talk about my own vision, I always tell the backstory: My high school friend – who is still one of my best friends to this day – we were talking over lunch and he asked me, 'Do I really see that? Are you playing ball yourself?

“I told him, 'Yeah.' He told me he could see me succeed and make a lot of money at the end of someone's bench. I turned around and looked at him and told him, 'I'm not going to be anybody's bench.' The last one. I'm going to score like Kobe in the league.

Understand the running-in😤

— Norman Powell (@npowell2404) June 29, 2024

Powell believes the production should make him the talk of the All-Star Game for the first time in his career.

“Personally, I want to be an All-Star,” Powell said. “This is something I said verbally – and probably had trouble saying it a few years ago because I thought my goal was to be a man. That expectation was what I expected of myself. I always saw myself as All-Star player. It's a personal goal of mine to be selected as an All-Star this year.

Powell made some headlines during the Clippers media day, calling George's departure an “additional subtraction.” He's proven to be Los Angeles' top scoring option so far, which backs up his words.

However, he downplayed any feud between him and George, saying he hasn't spoken to George since he left for Philadelphia but that they will “reach out” at some point.

“We haven't spoken since he went to Philadelphia,” Powell said. “I don't know if it's addition or subtraction, but I'm sure we're going to connect somewhere. From what I've seen and what he's said to me and what I've said, there's no beef or anything like that. .

The UCLA product also mentioned that he had not spoken with Westbrook until last Friday after they had played the Denver Nuggets a few times earlier this season.

Powell previously helped the Clippers defeat George's 76ers in a game on November 6, winning 110-98.

“Maybe we'll finish the season,” Powell said of the next time the Clippers face George's 76ers. “Russ didn't say anything to me until the last time we played him in Denver, and he didn't say a word to me the other three times we played him. So I don't know if this is a rivalry as well.

Powell talks shooting adjustments early in career

Considering Powell entered the league as an unknown second-round draft pick in 2015, his career is unique. Scored 5.6 points in 14.8 minutes.

Five years into his career, however, his scoring average has soared to 16.0 points per game, and he typically shoots around 40 percent from beyond the arc.

In 21 games this season, Powell's shooting percentage from beyond the three-point line is as high as 48.5% (fifth in the league) and his true shooting percentage is 65% (15th in the league). Not bad for a 6-foot-3 shooting guard who was a backup on the Raptors' 2019 championship team.

After the draft, his coach told him he was shooting on the way down and his 3-point shot was jumping too high, so the adjustment was made.

“We changed a lot, especially when I first left the league,” Powell said of the changes in his shooting technique. “My career average in college from 3-point range was 29 or 30 percent. I was more of a breakout, serve, transition type of player. Back in college, I used to shoot the ball behind my head. We To fix my situation on the three-point shot, I would shoot it like a pull-up jumper. I would jump high and shoot on the way down.

“Coming into the league, we changed my level of jumping,” Powell continued. “I don't jump at all when I shoot three-pointers. Get it out and we do a lot of form shots and readjust my release point. It just keeps repeating that every day. After a year of adjusting, you get used to it. , adding some different moments to have more control over your shots, etc. Just keep iterating with new mechanics and forms and it's like clockwork now.

Powell talks the growth of his game

The veteran guard said the biggest difference between Powell now and when he was drafted in 2015 is that he is “smarter” and “more in control.”

“He's a lot smarter and a lot more in control,” Powell said. “He's actually thinking about the game instead of going out there and running a million miles an hour trying to finish the game. I think he's more efficient with his time, more efficient with his process and sets the stage for going out there and playing and performing. foundation.

Powell emphasized that “recovery” is an important part of his daily life as he enters the latter stages of his career, something he didn't even think about when he was drafted at age 22 in 2015. He has a “hyperbaric chamber” at home and does “appropriate stretching” and acupuncture during his summer breaks.

As Powell continues to have the best season of his career, he reiterated that winning another championship is key. Although the Clippers had low expectations heading into the season following the departures of George and Westbrook, the 10-year guard isn't lowering any expectations.

He emphasized that the ultimate goal is to win the championship every year.

“That's my main goal,” Powell said of winning the championship. “I've been fortunate enough to be on teams that were championship contenders or playoff contenders. My main goal every year is to win a championship.