Why the Odds are Stacked Against Norman Powell Repeating as an All-Star
The Bulls' Norman Powell made the All-Star team for the first time in 2026 while playing his 11th season in Miami. Can he do it again in Chicago?
A second-round pick in 2015 and playing for his fourth team, Powell averaged 21.7 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.5 assists for the Heat last season, good enough to finally earn a spot on the Eastern Conference reserve list. Fans did not vote him in as a starter. Nobody had to get injured for him to take a roster spot. Head coaches chose him.
The year before, in Los Angeles, he also had All-Star-level scoring, but the invite never came. Miami gave him the role he needed with increased usage and a need for him to provide offense, and the Eastern Conference had less competition than what he faced in Los Angeles.
Timing also played a role. He may have benefited from injuries to Tyrese Haliburton and Trae Young. Still, after so many years, becoming a first-time all-star is rare.
Players who first become All-Stars after 10 seasons in the league are few. The group is Mike Conley, Kyle Korver, Tyson Chandler, Sam Cassell, Anthony Mason, Vlade Divac, and Powell.
How they got there is part of the story.
None of the seven were fan-vote starters. Powell, Chandler, Cassell, and Mason were coaches’ reserves. Conley, Korver, and Divac needed someone else to get hurt. Conley replaced Devin Booker, who had already replaced Anthony Davis. Korver replaced Dwyane Wade. Divac replaced Shaquille O’Neal.
What happened next is the rest of the story. None of them made another All-Star team.
Conley kept playing at a high level for years after Utah and never got a second nod.
Korver stayed one of the best shooters in the league.
Chandler had already won Defensive Player of the Year before earning an all-star birth but neither award came again.
Cassell made All-NBA the same year he finally made the All-Star Game and that was still his only invitation.
Mason was out of the league about two years later.
Divac is the only Hall of Famer in the group, being voted in based on his entire body of work, including an honorable European career.
As for Powell, he is now 33 years old and again on a new team, the Chicago Bulls, who should provide him with adequate minutes and usage to put up similar numbers to what he did last season.
But another All-Star birth in the East is not going to be easy for a first-time All-Star who just signed with a team projected to be a bottom four team. The other players in this club got one weekend of fame and then went back to being very good veterans.
With Young and Haliburton coming back and the Bulls trying to figure out an identity, it does not look like Powell will get the same league wide recognition as he did in Mami. To quote Powell, “We (the Bulls) have the potential to be really good, but we also have the potential to be really bad”.
In short, it will be very difficult for Powell to make a second all-star team this season. The odds are against it. But the Bulls need him to “star” in the role that he will be asked to play, to be a savvy veteran and locker room presence, and an example for Matas Buzelis and Caleb Wilson on how to approach each game as professional NBA players.
