NBA Notes: Heat, Norman Powell, Dink Pate, Jazz, Jusuf Nurkic

Heat

Norman Powell has always scored. The difference now is how he’s doing it, and how often the ball is just handed to him with a shrug that says go get one.

Powell is averaging a career-high 23.7 points this season while shooting .485 from the field, .416 from three and .846 at the line in his first season with the Heat. It has him squarely in the All-Star conversation for the first time, and the numbers back it up.

Fred Katz of The Athletic labeled Powell a “one-on-one savant,” and the data agrees. Thanks to Miami’s offensive structure, Powell is on pace to more than double his previous career high in isolation plays.

According to Katz, the Heat are scoring 127.2 points per 100 possessions on Powell isolations, the best mark in the league and the best single-season figure tracked by Second Spectrum for a high-volume iso player dating back to 2013.

Powell is making about $20.5 million in the final year of his contract. He is extension-eligible through June 30. If nothing gets done, he hits unrestricted free agency on July 1.

G League

Dink Pate is keeping his options open.

The former G League Ignite wing, now with the Westchester Knicks, is exploring potential college paths, his agent Sam Permut of Roc Nation told Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress.

Pate graduated high school in 2023, which could put him in line for at least two seasons of NCAA eligibility starting next year.

Whether the NCAA agrees is another story. Pate declared for the 2025 NBA draft and kept his name in. Unlike some recent cases, he has already signed an NBA contract, completing an Exhibit 10 deal with the Knicks in September.

That is where things get murky.

NCAA president Charlie Baker said in December that any player who has signed an NBA deal, including a two-way, would not be eligible for college basketball. What remains unclear is how Exhibit 10 contracts are viewed. They are non-guaranteed and only trigger a modest bonus if a player sticks with a G League affiliate for at least 60 days.

For now, Pate is playing. He has appeared in 27 G League games, averaging 18.0 points, 6.8 rebounds and 4.3 assists in heavy minutes. College remains a possibility. A guaranteed NBA deal would end the debate quickly.

Jazz

Jusuf Nurkic has missed time lately. His enthusiasm has not.

The big man has dealt with a toe injury and logged his first trio of DNP-CDs of the season, but indicated his feelings about the Jazz have not changed, per Andy Larsen of the Salt Lake Tribune.

Nurkic is on an expiring $19.4 million deal and has popped up in trade chatter ahead of the February 5 deadline. He laughed it off.

“If it’s up to me, I’m not leaving,” Nurkic said, calling himself a “Jazz for life.”

According to Larsen, Nurkic is well-regarded inside the organization. Team officials point to his league-leading screen assists and his fit with a young roster. That does not guarantee anything as the deadline approaches, but even if Utah moves him, Larsen floated a scenario in which Nurkic returns in free agency to back up Walker Kessler next season.

Nurkic summed it up simply.

“You can’t really control a lot of things,” he said. “But I obviously love being here.”