Powell Contributes to Toronto Raptors Winning NBA Title
June 13, 2019 | Men's Basketball
Former UCLA standout Norman Powell helped the Toronto Raptors to the 2019 NBA Finals championship on Thursday evening, as Toronto downed the Golden State Warriors, 114-110, in Oakland.
Powell, who hails from San Diego, became the 21st former UCLA player to have been a part of an NBA championship squad (in all, 21 former UCLA players have won the NBA title 34 times). He averaged 6.5 points and 2.2 rebounds in 23 games during Toronto's postseason run.
Powell was a second round NBA Draft selection in 2015 by the Milwaukee Bucks and was immediately acquired in a trade that evening by the Toronto Raptors. Now in his fourth season with the Raptors organization, Powell has played a key role in each of his years with Toronto. This year's championship marked the first-ever NBA title for the Raptors, who entered the NBA as an expansion team to start the 1995-96 season.
Former UCLA forward Kevon Looney played for the Golden State Warriors, having captured NBA titles in 2017 and 2018. Between Looney and Powell in the 2019 NBA Finals, UCLA has had at least one former UCLA player guide his NBA team to the NBA Finals 60 times.
Powell has become the third former UCLA player in the past four years to win an NBA championship. Kevin Love helped lead the Cleveland Cavs to the 2016 title, before Looney played a role with the Warriors' title-winning teams in 2017 and 2018.
Through four seasons at UCLA (2012-15), Powell averaged 9.8 points and 3.0 rebounds in 141 career games. He is tied for fourth place on UCLA's career games played list, as only Michael Roll, Darren Collison and Alfred Aboya played in more UCLA games than did Powell. In addition, he ranks No. 30 on UCLA's all-time points scored list (1,376 points).
