{"id":576372,"date":"2026-02-02T02:57:21","date_gmt":"2026-02-02T02:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/576372\/"},"modified":"2026-02-02T02:57:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-02T02:57:21","slug":"fred-vanvleets-message-to-norman-powells-nba-all-star-nod","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/576372\/","title":{"rendered":"Fred VanVleet&#8217;s message to Norman Powell&#8217;s NBA All-Star nod"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The reserves for next month&#8217;s NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles were announced on Sunday, including <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/houston-rockets\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Houston Rockets<\/a> forward Kevin Durant. Meanwhile, among the first-timers is <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/miami-heat\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Miami Heat<\/a> guard <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/players\/b75f097e\/norman-powell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Norman Powell<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Powell has been on a tear in his maiden season with the Heat, averaging career-highs of 23.0 points, 3.7 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.2 steals entering their game against the Chicago Bulls.<\/p>\n<p>His former teammate, Rockets guard <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/players\/a13808b9\/fred-vanvleet\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fred VanVleet<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/FredVanVleet\/status\/2018106805314846728\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">could not be more excited<\/a> for his selection to the midseason classic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNorm! Well-deserved, @Jigga2cal. One of the hardest workers I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d wrote VanVleet on X.<\/p>\n<p>VanVleet and Powell played together for several years on the Toronto Raptors, winning a championship in 2019. They developed a strong bond as teammates, and obviously, they have remained tight despite being on different teams now.<\/p>\n<p>Powell was traded by Toronto to the Portland Trail Blazers in 2021 for Gary Trent Jr. and Rodney Hood, while <a href=\"https:\/\/clutchpoints.com\/nba\/houston-rockets\/rockets-news-ime-udoka-reveals-non-traditional-plan-fred-vanvleet-injury\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">VanVleet signed with the Rockets in 2023<\/a> as a free agent.<\/p>\n<p>Their careers mirror each other, as both worked their way up the ladder, including playing in the G League. Powell was a second-round pick, while VanVleet went undrafted.<\/p>\n<p>VanVleet was named an All-Star in 2022. <\/p>\n<p>He is set to miss the entire season due to an ACL injury. He re-signed with Houston on a two-year, $50 million contract in June.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from Powell, other first-timers to the All-Star Game include Trail Blazers forward Deni Avdija, Oklahoma City Thunder center Chet Holmgren, Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray, Atlanta Hawks forward Jalen Johnson, and Detroit Pistons center Jalen Duren.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The reserves for next month&#8217;s NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles were announced on Sunday, including Houston Rockets&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3794],"tags":[7,866,292,194,4066,189,6,558,211],"class_list":{"0":"post-576372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-rockets","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-fred-vanvleet","10":"tag-houston","11":"tag-houston-rockets","12":"tag-houstonrockets","13":"tag-miami-heat","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-norman-powell","16":"tag-rockets"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}