ATLANTA — Two obligations come after you receive an NBA awards vote. First, you must educate yourself. Second, whether you want it or not, you have to get educated.
As the regular-season’s finale approaches, your phone lights up with text messages or calls from agents, publicists, executives and coaches, who hope to sway you into voting for their guy. Most adopt the same strategy: Advocate in the most extreme way they can while remaining on the spectrum of reason. They use statistical, anecdotal and strategic examples to back their arguments. Some are convincing. If you push back, it’s rare that anyone concedes. Heck, one agent still harps on me not dubbing one of his clients All-Rookie First Team half a decade ago. He’s closer to the norm than the opposite would be.
But this spring, I experienced unexpected déjà vu.
An executive from a team with a perimeter player who had a legitimate case to make an All-Defensive team rang me to pump up the candidate and get an idea of whether I would include him on my ballot. At the time, I was on the fence. He asked which wings and guards I had locked in. I mentioned Derrick White, then Ausar Thompson. He respectfully pushed back on both, not arguing against either but instead eloquently detailing why his guy should be on the same plane.
Then, I said OG Anunoby. For the long-armed New York Knicks forward, there was no rebuttal.
“Well, of course,” the executive said, invoking the same tone he could have used if he had responded, “Duhhhhhhh.”
Not long later, I spoke with someone in another front office. We discussed my awards ballot and eventually got to All-Defensive, and I told him I would not be including one of his perimeter stoppers, who had a strong case to make one of the two teams but, in my opinion, fell short. So, we went through a similar routine.
I mentioned White and both the Thompson twins. He argued for his guy over all three. Then, I said the name that apparently halts any conversation of this ilk: Anunoby.
“Oh, yeah,” that front-office exec replied. “That guy is ridiculous.”
Embedded inside each awards campaign is an exercise in respect, not for whoever is being promoted but for everyone else.
No one gave me grief for choosing Victor Wembanyama as Defensive Player of the Year. No one pushed back when I penciled in Shai Gilegous-Alexander for Clutch Player of the Year (mostly because no one cares about Clutch Player of the Year). And no one took issue with Anunoby entrenching himself in my All-Defensive First Team.
It’s the same reason you never hear a peep about Anunoby’s contract, which makes him the second-highest-paid player on the Knicks, even more expensive than team captain and perennial All-NBA guard Jalen Brunson. Anunoby has never made an All-Star appearance. Because of injuries, he’s shown up on just one All-Defensive team, though that could change once the NBA announces this season’s. But he is in the upper echelon in one category that front offices adore. He’s one of the best players in the league who could plop himself onto all 30 teams without disrupting any of their offensive or defensive ecosystems.
Of course, he is disrupting the Atlanta Hawks.
The Knicks are just one win away from the second round of the playoffs, surging to a 3-2 series lead Tuesday, when they throttled the Hawks 126-97, their second consecutive blowout victory. After five games, the series’ main characters are set.
Karl-Anthony Towns has taken on a greater role in the offense, dominating the smaller Hawks. Brunson struggled for the first four games, thanks to Atlanta’s determined guards, but regained elite form Tuesday, dropping 39 points on 15-of-23 shooting. CJ McCollum has emerged as the most mild-mannered Madison Square Garden villain in Knicks history. Jalen Johnson has been hot and cold. Mikal Bridges has just been cold.
And then there’s Anunoby, the Knicks’ subtlest lynchpin.
The guy who went for 17 points and 11 rebounds in the Game 5 blowout. The guy who has destroyed the Hawks on the glass, averaging 9.0 boards a game. The guy who has hit more than half of his 3-pointers against Atlanta. The guy who is slicing Atlanta to death, who has mastered how to move the defense without the basketball, who is averaging 20 points during this series, even though he’s run only seven pick-and-rolls over these five games, according to Second Spectrum. For perspective, Landry Shamet, a little-used spot-up shooter who exited New York’s rotation after Game 2, has run eight.
“He impacts (the game) in ways that you can’t even really tell,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said. “Because it doesn’t show up in the stat sheet.”
Anunoby is the guy who allows New York to toy with different defensive strategies against Atlanta.
The Knicks can place centers on Dyson Daniels, a guard with no interest in shooting 3-pointers, because Anunoby can man the Hawks’ tallest player, Onyeka Okongwu. On the next possession, he can take Johnson, Atlanta’s soon-to-be All-NBA forward. On the following one, he can pick up one of the league’s scariest off-ball threats, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, who can free himself for 3s aplenty against nearly anyone but has yet to score in this series while Anunoby is defending him.
As the conversation has perpetuated all season, the Knicks can accomplish their ambitious goals only if Brunson dominates, only if he meshes with Towns, only if Bridges returns from the great unknown, only if Miles McBride nails his 3s, only if Mitchell Robinson overcomes his free-throw woes to stay on the court. Anunoby is often absent from the conversation, too steady and maybe with a public persona too quiet for any grand proclamations.
Such is the norm for Anunoby, who isn’t much for campaigning, except for once.
Years ago, Anunoby’s older brother, Chigbo, believed OG was destined for big things. He wanted such reflected in high-school recruiting rankings, which were low on OG at the time. Unlike most hoopers who eventually get taken in the first round of the NBA Draft, top college coaches weren’t begging for him to come their way. So, Chigbo reached out to Eric Bossi from Rivals.com, contesting that this teenager in the middle of Missouri should move up the list. He emailed Bossi over and over again.
Eventually, OG moved up the list — maybe because he joined a more visible AAU team for which he dominated, or maybe because promotional campaigns, whether Anunoby is the subject or not, tend to work for him.
