OG Anunoby is shooting a career low from beyond the arc to begin the 2026-27 season. The New York Knicks shouldn’t care.
Or rather, they should care more about Anunoby’s plummeting efficiency inside the arc.
It is much easier to dismiss the 29-year-old’s struggles from downtown. Despite hovering under 33 percent on triples overall, he is still hitting almost 39 percent of his catch-and-shoot treys. His decline from beyond the arc is most likely fleeting noise.
No one on the Knicks has attempted more threes inside seven seconds of the shot clock. These grenades are notoriously inefficient scoring opportunities. Not surprisingly, Anunoby is draining them at a 20.8 percent clip. His percentage will climb as New York’s offense gets more consistent, and also as he invariably attempts fewer off-the-dribble long balls.
Anunoby’s dip in two-point efficiency is tougher to write off. The Knicks have expanded his offensive role to give him more attacking agency, and it’s led to disastrous results.
OG Anunoby’s efficiency is imploding on his drives
Just so we’re clear, New York isn’t placing a bunch of self-creation responsibility onto Anunoby’s shoulders. More of his made two-pointers are coming off assists than last year. He’s also averaging fewer combined pick-and-roll ball-handler, iso and post-up true shooting attempts per 100 possessions.
Additional drives are the vessels through which Anunoby is notching a career-high usage rate. He is averaging 11.3 downhill attacks per 36 minutes, up from 9.4 last season. While this has helped juice his presence at the foul line, it has also revealed the limits of his finishing package.
OG has always been best served attacking in a relatively straight line. Dribbling through traffic isn’t his strong suit. He doesn’t have a ton of directionality to his handle, and complicated footwork isn’t part of his bag. He is more likely to toss body and ball into opposing defenders than Eurostep his way around them.
The results speak for themselves. Anunoby is shooting just 52.9 percent in the restricted area—by far and away the worst mark of his career, and well below the league average of 65.6 percent. Among 43 players who have attempted at least 50 shots this close to the basket, only Stephon Castle of the San Antonio Spurs is faring worse.
Worse still, roughly 27.5 percent of Anunoby’s shots at the rim are getting blocked. (For context, just 11 percent of his looks at the hoop were sent back last year.) Over 170 players have taken 20 or more shots at the cup this season. Nobody has seen a higher share of their attempts get swatted away.
The Knicks need Anunoby to get back to basics
At least some of this can be attributed to early-schedule randomness. Watching Anunoby, though, you can almost feel his shot quality around the basket deteriorating relative to years past.
Defenses are paying more attention to him, both beyond the arc and on his drives. That’s a testament to his ability. But his decision-making in these instances leaves much to be desired.
Heavily contested opportunities are a choice when they’re not coming late into the shot clock. If Anunoby is going to drive this much, he needs to have more assists off sprays to the perimeter. Right now, he has more turnovers out of drives than dimes.
We are also seeing Anunoby get downhill more often from a dead stop. The Knicks should make an effort to get him the ball when he’s already on the move, or at the very least when he has more of a runway to dribble.
This can be interpreted as a call to box Anunoby into an archetypal corner. Maybe it is. We know he wants to be more than just a three-and-D superstar. And he is more than that.
Not all three-and-D complements have Anunoby’s basic driving ability. But if he wants an expanded role, it still has to come within the realm of his strengths. The way New York is having him attack right now, generally speaking, isn’t one of them.
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