Last summer we all held our heads high after we learned that OG Anunoby wasn’t included in the Kawhi Leonard-DeMar DeRozan trade. After all, after Anunoby’s rookie season, some people had proclaimed him a “Kawhi-lite”. Giddy at the thought of how high Anunoby’s star could rise, we all wondered if he would learn from Leonard, mold himself after him, and set out towards a similar career. Anunoby put the work in, in the offseason and put himself in the best position to succeed, but family tragedies and strange maladies took the wind out of his sails. A strange year in which he became an NBA champion, but probably didn’t accomplish any personal goals on the court.
From the jump, Anunoby was displaced to start the year. After living in the warm confines of a low-usage role next to incumbent stars, DeRozan and Kyle Lowry, Anunoby was relegated to the bench unit that he ascended past in his rookie season. Discussions about a platoon between himself and Pascal Siakam at the power forward position were quickly put to bed by Siakam’s sky-scraping improvements. The starting line-up was no longer a viable option for Anunoby, so he attempted to mold himself into a player who was more capable of creating, rather than being created for.
The growing pains that came along with Anunoby’s transformation were palpable, and put him in a position that fans hadn’t yet seen him. The dependable, steady player that Raptors fans could set their watch to, had become significantly more hit-or-miss. Add on top of that the untimely passing of his father, and you’ve got a roller coaster of changes for a young man to go through.
“I gotta say this about OG and I hate to put the kid out there too, ya know? Unfortunately, he lost his dad. His dad died in his sleep. Many people don’t know this and it’s really hit him. But with those two kids, the way their mindset works, I think they complement and they’re rising on our team. They’re growing and we’re really happy to have them.” – Masai Ujiri on Anunoby and Siakam.
Anunoby’s decision making while attacking downhill was ahead of the curve in his rookie year. The Raptors were hoping that the flashes of playmaking they saw would translate to a more prolific performance in that area this past year. That didn’t come to fruition as Anunoby registered more turnovers, no uptick in assists, and a lower assist percentage than in his rookie year. Moving away from the baseline cuts and corner triples that were the story of his first offensive season, Anunoby struggled. His decisiveness and footwork off of DHO’s (dribble hand-off) was sloppy, he showed little to no promise as a pick n’ roll ball handler, and his pull-up jumper didn’t progress at all. However, the 15.8-percent he shot when pulling up from three-point land could be the issue at hand, and it’s easier to fix one isolated facet (pull-up jumper) than it is to throw your hands in the air and say “he can’t create.”
The dribbling is one objective thing that has to improve if he wants to grow towards anything other than the ‘3 and D’ archetype. Lots of players have worked in a dribbling package or two, and furiously developed a pull-up jumper, the blueprint is there. Fewer players have developed the “vision” that accompanies good decision makers. One of which, is DeRozan, who through sheer will began to manipulate and unravel NBA defenses after being perplexed by them for so long.
The optimistic look would be to acknowledge Anunoby’s shortcomings when dribbling and by extension, the pull-up jumper, while looking at some of the playmaking he flashed; A true believer in Anunoby would suggest he makes good on what he’s bad at, and improves or at least maintains what he’s good at. That means that we can expect to see the pull-up jumper improve, helping to change how teams play him on the aforementioned PNR & DHO play-types. And not only will he be able to make teams pay when they leave him open, but he’ll take advantage of downhill opportunities when they play tight, creating great shots for his teammates with his vision, or for himself using his great athleticism and strength. That would make this year a painful step in the right direction, and a building block.
The pessimistic take would be that he’ll only ever have the capacity to be proficient as a set-shooter and lacks the handle to create anything. This means that any attempts to cast him as a tertiary creator, instead of scorer, will be in vain. That means that Anunoby’s best role will always be as a corner shot-maker, baseline cutter, and a guy who makes the proper swing-pass. That’s not the toolbox of a bad player either, just a different one.
This year? He looked far more like the second player being asked to perform the duties of the first one. The world is his oyster, and he can make himself into whatever player he wants, though.
Of course, Anunoby’s year can’t be summed up by highlighting only his offensive performance. Before he was drafted – and in his first year in the league – his defense was his calling card. After his rookie season he was recognized by many as an up-and-coming defensive stud, and rightly so, he had several standout performances against some of the league’s best offensive players (James Harden, LeBron James).
In the midst of all of Anunoby’s offensive hiccups, he joined the ‘Bench Mob’ defensively, but a version of the bench mob that lost one of it’s lynch-pins to the starting lineup and another in the Leonard trade – Siakam and Poeltl. This put Anunoby in an equally awkward position defensively, as he was asked to move up a position a large portion of the time. He was asked to play more help-defense at the rim, and bang on the defensive glass more often. Both of those things are a unique challenge due to his relative lack of size at the ‘4’ position, but they also take away from his greatest defensive strength, defense on the wing and above the break.
As ever, when Anunoby was asked to do things defensively that profile as his strengths, he was superb. When I was writing my feature on him shortly before the playoffs began, I found an outrageous defensive statistic:
“He’s guarded Ben Simmons, the shifty Caris Levert, LeBron James, and Jayson Tatum for a combined 70 possessions, of those possessions, 5 shots were attempted. These players hate the idea of breaking him down 1-on-1, and he’s an incredible defensive piece to unleash in the playoffs. The statistics will never tell the whole story, but we’ve seen him line-up opposite enough stars to know they reveal something meaningful.”
Unfortunately, the makeup of the Raptors roster didn’t grant him much time to play to his strengths this year, on offense or defense. This year was turbulent for Anunoby, and there were definite flashes of promise in some areas – a game here or there where he found the timing to defend in the paint, cut backdoor for dunks, and hit threes from the corner and above-the-break.
It’s too dramatic to call this a “lost year” for Anunoby – he played 67 games – but it’s hard to put a bow on this year, even with him becoming an NBA Champion, when you consider the personal struggles he went through off the court that impacted him on the court. After excelling at almost everything that was asked of him in his limited role, he was asked to step out of it in year two, as opposed to growing within the same one.
The third year is often touted as the biggest for wing players and it looms large for Anunoby. His second year was a challenge in so many ways, but he still has his youth, a championship, and tons of talent and physical gifts to build on. Leonard’s exit provides a vacuum for Anunoby to explode through. We’ll see how things shake out.
Have a blessed day.
