That’s not some sort of play on words with Norman Powell in the title. He did return to the Raptors this week, and has been playing great, but what he — and Pascal Siakam, and Marc Gasol — represent for Toronto is a return to normalacy. For what’s felt like forever, the Raptors have been trotting out all kinds of wacky lineups, rotations we never could have expected or predicted when the season started. As a result, the team’s record has taken some weird deviations from, well, the norm.
Usually when that turn of phrase is used — regression to the norm — it’s meant as a negative.