The Evolution of OG Anunoby

How a guy who reportedly wanted a bigger role in the offense has become the perfect cog in New York's attack.

Good morning! The Knicks are in Dallas tonight to face a Mavs team without Luka Doncic. The game is at 7:30 pm and will be broadcast on ESPN. No Knicks are on the injury report besides Precious and Mitch. I’ll be on halftime if you want to join.

As for the rest of this week, I’m planning on getting a newsletter out after tonight’s game, and then the next newsletter will come your way after the Hornets game on Saturday afternoon. Then back to a regular schedule on Monday.

The Evolution of OG Anunoby

“He wants to be a bigger part of the offense.”

The rumor has been following OG Anunoby around for years, ever since he was part of one of the more egalitarian NBA offenses you’re ever going to see.

It was the 2021-22 season, OG’s fifth as a pro. He had the distinction of raising his scoring average every year he’d been in the NBA up until that point and this was no exception, as he achieved a career high 17.1 points per game. That number would have likely been higher were it not for the situation Anonoby found himself in, part of a starting unit in which all five players averaged between 15.3 and 22.8 points. The lowest among those was Scottie Barnes, who had clearly established himself as the future face of the franchise, while the highest two averages belonged to Pascal Siakam and Fred VanVleet, two players with All-Star credentials.

The writing was on the wall. If OG Anunoby wanted a bigger share of the pie, he would likely have to go to a different table.

That much wasn’t in dispute. The bigger question was how it would look.

In that 2021-22 season, OG not only carried a career high 20.0 usage rate, but he looked like a guy who was trying to shift further into the territory of a traditional NBA shot creator. According to Cleaning the Glass, he was assisted on 62 percent of his shots, which put him right on the cusp of the top 25 percent of wings league-wide in terms of self-creation. In the midrange, he was assisted on only 28 percent of his looks - less than half of the number from just two years earlier.

According to NBA.com, 5.9 percent of Anunoby’s shot attempts that season came after at least seven dribbles while 23.9 percent came after 3-6 dribbles. 11.3 percent of his looks came after he’d touched the ball for at least six seconds. Perhaps most notably, he started to dabble in the mystic arts of off-the-dribble threes, with 20.3 percent of his above-the break makes coming without the benefit of an assist.

Now fast forward to this year, where many of those numbers have been flipped upside down.