New York Knicks forward and best two-way player OG Anunoby has chosen to decline his player option for the 2024-25 campaign, according to Fred Katz of The Athletic, choosing to hit the unrestricted free agency market in an effort to gain long term security, as one of the most sought-after players on the market.
People that cover the NBA on a regular basis had expected Anunoby to decline the player option for the final season of the four-year, $72 million contract that he inked in December 2020 as a member of the Toronto Raptors. The Raptors drafted Anunoby in the first round with the 23rd pick of the 2017 NBA Draft, with head coaches Dwane Casey followed by Nick Nurse helping to oversee his development into one of the NBA’s premier 3-and-D wings, a critical piece to the puzzle on the Raptors teams that made the playoffs in each of his first three years as a pro and won the 2019 NBA championship, led by Kawhi Leonard in his sophomore season. Anunoby was forced to sit out for that entire title run after undergoing an emergency appendectomy right before the start of the postseason.
Under the terms of that contract, Anunoby was set to earn $19.9 million next season. In a financial landscape in which the salary cap has exploded to $141 million for the ’24-25 campaign, he very well could wind up doubling that salary in the first year of a new multi-year agreement, one with a total value likely to exceed the four-year, $118 million maximum extension that “Anunoby was limited to signing but would not have accepted with the Raptors,” as Yahoo Sports senior NBA reporter Jake Fischer reported back in January.
That lucrative, life-changing new deal could well come from the Knicks, whose trade for Anunoby helped turn around their season.
At the time of the swap, the Knicks mired in mediocrity, sitting just three games above .500 at 17-14, in seventh place in the Eastern Conference and was an average team ranking 16th in the league in defensive efficiency, according to Cleaning the Glass. The acquisition of Anunoby, 6-foot-7, 240 pounds with a 7-foot-2 wingspan and with an All-Defensive selection under his belt, enhanced the defensive intensity of Tom Thibodeau’s team, as the Knicks were victorious in 12 of Anunoby’s first 14 games and began to resemble a bona fide title contender until the injuries took their toll.
Embed from Getty ImagesAnunoby’s individual production, 14.1 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 34.9 minutes per game for New York in the regular season, would not knock anyone’s socks off. The Knicks were effective and controlled the game, winning Anunoby’s minutes in all 23 regular-season games he played for them, taking it to and outscoring opponents by an unbelievable 21.7 points per 100 possessions with him on the court.
Anunoby’s ability to space the floor from the corners, 39.4% from beyond the arc on 4.5 attempts per game in New York, helped open up driving lanes for star point guard and floor general Jalen Brunson. His knack for accepting the most challenging defensive assignments, he spent the lion’s share of his time on the floor shadowing either Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey during New York’s first-round playoff win over the Philadelphia 76ers, helping ease the defensive burden on the Knicks’ other perimeter players, allowing Josh Hart and Donte DiVincenzo to play more natural roles as help-side disruptors.
And Anunoby’s nose for the basketball and his propensity to cause havoc as a defender, 1.7 steals, 1 block and 3.2 deflections per game after the trade, helped elevate the Knicks transition game, with New York shifting from a bottom-10 unit on the break before his arrival in the ‘Big Apple’ into one that scored at a league-best-level in transition with him on the floor.
The Knicks went an impressive 26-6 with Anunoby in the lineup, outscoring the opposition by a staggering 16.3 points-per-100 in his minutes, a dramatic swing that puts him in the realm as the kind of two-way difference-maker that any team with enough money to invest, would love to add in free agency.
Since appearing in 69 games in the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, his injury history has been spotty at best, missing 76 games in the last three seasons, including 32 in 2023-24, with surgery to remove a loose bone fragment in his right elbow and a post-return flare-up putting him on the shelf most of the second half of the season.
Anunoby made it back for the stretch run of the regular season schedule, playing a massive role and too many minutes, which Thibodeau is known for, through the Knicks’ first seven playoff games. In the third quarter of Game 2 against the Indiana Pacers, in the middle of perhaps the finest performance of his career, with 28 points in 28 minutes, Anunoby lunged toward the basket on a fastbreak, pulled up with a noticeable hitch in his gait and immediately left the court with what was later revealed to be a strained left hamstring.
Anunoby missed the next three games, as Indiana took command of the series. He attempted to pull off a Willis Reed-type moment returning in Game 7, making his first two shots; it was immediately clear that he just could not move at anything like his elite level, leading Thibodeau to end the disastrous experiment after just five minutes and regulating Anunoby into nothing more than a spectator as the Pacers ended New York’s season with a blowout loss.
“I just wanted to play,” Anunoby said after the game. “I wanted to try. Like, at least try to help my teammates.”
As he left the home locker room at Madison Square Garden for the summer, Knicks wing Josh Hart pointed toward Anunoby and big man Isaiah Hartenstein and said, “Those two better come back.” With Hartenstein already on the unrestricted market and Anunoby now joining him, we will soon find out whether the Knicks can follow Hart’s orders, and how high a price it will take to get it done.
