Jamaica’s men’s national basketball program has posted impressive growth over the last two years, and NBA champion and All-Star Norman Powell is betting that attracting more league talent to the national side will not only lift on-court performance but also shore up the program’s long-term financial standing. This summer, the Miami Heat guard will make his much-anticipated return to the Jamaica national team for the final first-round group matches of the FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, set to take place against the Bahamas and Canada in July. Currently sitting second in their group with six points, Jamaica only needs one win from the two upcoming matches to lock in a spot in the tournament’s final qualifying round.
The 32-year-old sharpshooter was forced to sit out Jamaica’s first four qualifying matches between November last year and March this year, due to overlapping NBA regular season commitments. Unlike many top European leagues, NBA franchises are not required to release their players for international window matches, leaving attendance up to individual club and player negotiations. This marked a missed window, but Powell’s history with the current qualifying campaign already cements his status as a core contributor to the program: back in August 2025, he led Jamaica to successful wins over Barbados and Costa Rica during the Americas Pre-Qualifiers in Mexico, averaging 23 points per game to power the team through to the first-round group stage.
The 2025-2026 NBA regular season marked a career-defining year for Powell, who averaged a career-best 22 points per game to earn his first ever NBA All-Star selection. At the February 2026 All-Star Game held at the Intuit Dome in California, Powell represented his Jamaican heritage while playing for Team World, proudly displaying the Jamaican flag on his game jersey. Despite his standout individual season, Powell and the Miami Heat fell short of a playoff berth, losing to the Charlotte Hornets in the NBA’s play-in tournament last month. Adding another layer of uncertainty to his off-court situation, Powell is set to become an unrestricted free agent in July, leaving his future with the Heat unclear.
Even with his own NBA career at a turning point, Powell says the uncertainty around his club contract will not distract from his commitment to Jamaica’s national program, which he is dedicated to lifting to new heights for future generations of Jamaican players. “I was the only NBA guy playing last year, trying to help us qualify for the first time, so I’m fully invested in the Jamaica national team,” Powell said in an interview. “Everything I do for the national team is to help lay a solid foundation for the players coming up after me. I think what we were able to accomplish last summer really put Jamaica on the map, and you start seeing all the guys with Jamaican heritage talking about it throughout the season about wanting to take part and be a part of it. Hopefully we can figure out how we can make that happen, we’ll see Jamaica start to really climb the ranks, more guys will want to be a part of it, and we’ll continue to help grow basketball across the country.”
Powell’s hope of expanding the program’s NBA contingent is already well on its way to being realized. Amen Thompson of the Houston Rockets and Ausar Thompson of the Detroit Pistons, widely known as the Thompson Twins, are currently in the final stages of processing their Jamaican passports, and told the Jamaica Observer back in May that they are fully open to representing the nation at the international level. The Observer also reported in June that multiple other high-profile NBA players with Jamaican roots have expressed interest in joining the national program, including Toronto Raptors All-Star Scottie Barnes, Detroit Pistons center Isaiah Stewart and San Antonio Spurs guard Devin Vassell.
Powell, who won an NBA championship with the Toronto Raptors back in 2019, explained that adding more top-tier NBA talent to the national roster will deliver benefits far beyond the scoreboard. The veteran guard believes an expanded NBA presence will directly strengthen the program’s financial position through expanded sponsorship and fan support. “I just think the more players that are involved, the more people are going to want to rally behind it, because we bring different groups from all over,” he explained. “We have a lot of different support staff from where we grew up, how we play, different fans, different sponsorships, different partnerships that we bring because as players, we’re our own brand, you know, and we’re doing different things off the floor. And when you do deals with these brands and make these partnerships, you talk about what you do off the court, and wanting them to be able to take part, whether that’s donating items or donating money to help the programme.”
“For me personally, I always try to partner with people that are going to be a part of what I do off the court and then help boost and grow in that aspect,” he added. “So I think the more guys in the NBA that join, that can have that same mindset, I think it’ll help expedite the process to bring up and fund the national team.”
For the Jamaica Basketball Association (JABA), this is an unprecedented era of growth. As Jamaica makes its first ever appearance in the FIBA World Cup qualifying process, JABA has had to navigate a long list of first-time organizational tasks, including hosting home group matches at Kingston’s National Indoor Sports Centre earlier this year. The association also recently secured a major new milestone with a multi-year partnership deal with global apparel giant Adidas. Drawing on decades of professional experience in the NBA, Powell says he is ready to support JABA’s growing operations with logistical guidance, given the association’s relative lack of experience organizing large-scale international campaigns. “[For me] just individually committing, donating, helping and trying to make those trips and helping them plan easier from my experience on how it goes and what we do in the NBA so they can have an idea of how to set up and what to prepare for, what’s to be expected with the travel and the hotels, the transportation and things like that,” Powell said. “Because they’re still getting to know the process, they ask me a bunch of these different questions, so it’s definitely cool to be a part of that building process.”
