DALLAS — Given what OG Anunoby proved in the NBA, it was fitting and predictable that his introduction to the mainstream basketball world was a defensive performance.
Anunoboye's Indiana team faced a powerful and highly ranked Kentucky State in the second round of the 2016 NCAA Tournament. Anunoby, a freshman just 18 years old, held off the Nuggets' current star, Jamal Murray, and alternated guarding 6-foot-11 center Skal Labissiere and 5-foot-9 guard Tyler Ulis.
Anunoby's defensive positional versatility is at the heart of his value to the Knicks, and it was shown to its fullest.
“Tyler was SEC Player of the Year, but he wasn't as good as OG,” Tom Crean told the Post. “Even though he's big, he has a low center of gravity because he's low. And he can guard multiple dribbles. And what he can really do is change direction.”
Tom Thibodeau and William Wesley were notable attendees at the Indiana-Kentucky game.
Crean said they sat side by side in Des Moines, Iowa, absorbing Anunoby's rise.
Nearly eight years later, Thibodeau and Wesley acquired Anunoby along with Leon Rose, giving the Knicks a five-star defenseman. The numbers speak louder.
- Through his first six games with the Knicks, Anunoby has a defensive rating of 97, which would be the best in the NBA since Hassan Whiteside in 2016, projected for the entire season.
- *The Knicks' team defensive rating since acquiring Anunoby is 104.9, nine points better than their season average.
- The Knicks outscored opponents by 125 points in Anunoby's first 206 minutes, the best plus-minus in the NBA over the current six-game stretch.
- When Anunoby made All-Defense for the Raptors last season, he was third in the NBA in deflections despite playing in just 67 games. He also led the league in steals and outscored his team by 1.7 points per 100 possessions.
- Last season, Anunoby ranked 11th in matchup difficulty (a statistic that measures the quality of defensive assignments) and second in defensive positional versatility, according to Bball-index. That means only one player (his teammate Scottie Barnes) defended more positions.
Simply put, Anunoby protects a star player regardless of position and provides the Knicks with something they've probably lacked since Latrell Sprewell left town: an elite all-around defender with size, power, and quickness. .
“He just physically robs people,” the scout said. “That's the right way. [Josh] heart. Hart is lame. So Hart has to tackle you or press his shoulder to stop you from passing you on the second dribble. …Hart is just a B or B-plus defender. [on the perimeter]. Anunoby is an A defender. He's just big. He has the foot speed to turn right angles. Let him play with bigger players, let him play with smaller players. he's really good. ”
Anunoby's feet say a lot. They are like the trunks of oak trees, large and powerful. His older brother Chigbo is a former NFL linebacker and his mother is a former track and field athlete.
Strong sports genes. And it seems that discipline has grown as well.
“I don't mean to be disrespectful, but we tried to raise a family the right way,” Anunoby's father, OG Sr., told Sportsnet Canada before his death in 2018 at the age of 66. . “And when I say appropriate, what I mean is that we are people who do things well. We value hard work, order, and success. As long as we don't have to talk. , don't talk. And if you have to talk, you should say things that enrich the conversation, not detract from it.”
Still, Anunoby's family had no history with basketball, and he wasn't exactly the traditional blue-blooded prospect. Anunoby, an unranked three-star prep player, was not even scouted by his hometown University of Missouri. When he arrived at Indiana, he needed a tweak.
So Anunoby and Crean studied footage of the NBA's elite wing defenders, including Kawhi Leonard, Metta World Peace, Andre Roberson, Victor Oladipo and Paul George, all of whom Anunoby had recently struggled with.
“Big wing defenders like Jimmy, Kawhi and Paul George were amazing at dropping their shoulders, getting around screens, and defending with either hand or their legs,” Crean said. Ta. “And we spent a lot of time on it. And OG really bought into it.”
“Three guys stood out to me, Kawhi, Jimmy and Roberson,” Anunoby added.
Film sessions were conducted for tactical and mental preparation. To improve their physical performance, Anunoby and the rest of the Hoosiers took off their sneakers and trained in a sandpit built outside Indiana's practice facility.
“There are two different ways to condition your body without putting stress on it,” Crean says. “Swimming, sandboxes, etc. So we used sand. And it forces you to run fast. Obviously you have to be low because your feet are in the sand.”
The idea, beyond the obvious conditioning benefits, was to develop hip flexibility and add another physical tool to match Anubobi's natural “wrist strength.” Crean called it the second best coaching experience he's ever had, behind Anthony Edwards.
“Before the draft, the GM told me that as a player with 6 wins or more, [Anunoby] We had the highest success rate of on-ball defense without fouling,” Crean said.
Anunoby was thrown into the cauldron as the Raptors' No. 23 pick in 2017. Based on his regular season minutes as a rookie, his top three primary defenders would be LeBron James, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Jayson Tatum. In his first playoff game in 2018, he guarded John Wall and Bradley Beal in the first round and James in the second round.
“I think he has a bright future,” LeBron said of Anunoby after the series. “His future is actually now.”
By the time Anunoby entered his third season, he owned a championship ring and signed a four-year, $72 million contract extension despite suffering an injury during Toronto's 2019 playoff appearance.
“We're going to go out west and guard Nikola Jokic one night and Kawhi the next night,” said Nick Nurse, Anunoboy's former Toronto coach. “And then Damian Lillard. Across the board, he's going to do a really good job against all the players he can guard.”
Nurse, now the Sixers' coach, felt the effects last week. Philadelphia's spark plug point guard Tyrese Maxey, 6-2, was held to 2-of-8 shooting when Anunoby was the primary defender in the Knicks' win over the Sixers.
And earlier this season, while still with the Raptors, Anunoby was the primary defender, holding Victor Wembaneyama to 4-of-11 shooting with a 7-3 record.
This is more than a foot of positional variety. The Knicks are happy they don't have to deal with that anymore.
“It's not fun to play against him,” Donte DiVincenzo said.
“With that length and that athleticism, he can flip a switch and get away with it right away. So it's really good to have him on this side.”
