The OG Ascendance
A deeper look into the Knick that is quietly having a career year.
Good morning! The Knicks are off until tomorrow night. I’m not complaining about the breather.
The OG Ascendance
When Mike Brown was hired as the Knicks new head coach, there were high hopes that several players on the roster would show improvement under his guidance.
Mikal Brides would get more involved, Karl-Anthony Towns would be harder to scheme for, Jalen Brunson wouldn’t have to work as hard, Mitch would get some more freedom, and players at the end of the bench would…you know…actually play.
Among all the speculation though, the one guy who maybe went under the radar was OG Anunoby. Unlike, say, Bridges, whose skillset some felt was underutilized, Anunoby was what he was: a guy who was pristine from the corners and could attack a closeout, but whose offensive game would start to show seams if he was pushed past his limits.
He was also coming off of arguably a career year already, averaging a career high 18.0 points on strong efficiency while finishing one spot outside of All-Defense. How much higher did he really have to go?
Quite a bit, it seems.
With a dozen games remaining in the regular season, OG Anunoby is arguably having the best campaign of any Knick relative to preseason expectations. For starters, he is almost a sure bet to make All-Defense after falling just short last season, with a decent shot at the first 1st team selection of his career.
On offense, while his scoring average is down slightly, he’s actually scoring more points per 36 minutes, and at 18.4 per 36, is on pace for a new career high. His assists and rebounds per 36 minutes are also close to career highs, and his 2.6 stocks per 36 are his best as a Knick. The only counting stat that has trended in the wrong direction is turnovers, which have gone up by about half since last season, but in some ways that increase shouldn’t be viewed as a negative, as we’ll get into shortly.
Most importantly, Anunoby has gone from a moderately efficient player to the most efficient perimeter scorer on the roster. According to Cleaning the Glass, OG has increased his scoring from 118.3 points per 100 shot attempts to 123.1, which is a smidgen above KAT and second on the team behind only Mitchell Robinson. That figure ranks in the 88th percentile among forwards throughout the league, and is tops among forwards who have played at last 1500 minutes. Among forwards and wings who have played at least that many minutes and sport an 18.5 usage rate or higher, it trails only All-Stars Kevin Durant, Kawhi Leonard and Norm Powell, Rookie of the Year frontrunner Kon Knueppel, and Trey Murphy III of the Pelicans.
This begs the obvious question: what’s different?
