OG Anunoby quietly unveiled a new party trick during his four preseason appearances: higher-volume offensive rebounds. And while exhibition trends must be consumed with a metric ton of salt, this is a potentially huge development that would give the New York Knicks more ways to paper over Mitchell Robinson’s absence.
Did Anunoby hint at this development with his signature Finals moment? Who’s to say, really?
But the results thus far are tantalizing. And also consequential.
OG Anunoby cranked up his offensive rebounding
Across nearly 86 minutes of preseason action, Anunoby grabbed nine offensive boards. Though we’re dealing with a small sample, this comes out to 10 percent of the Knicks’ misses when he was on the floor.
For reference, Anunoby has never posted an offensive rebounding rate above 5 for an entire season. His playoff career high checks in around 7 percent. His preseason career high is even lower than that.
Furthermore, Anunoby’s offensive rebounding isn’t just an outlier for him. It’s anomalous for someone his size. Just two players listed at 6’7” or shorter posted an offensive rebounding rate of 10 or higher last season: Justin Champagnie, and Jabari Walker. Neither of them played nearly as many minutes as OG.
Still, this doesn’t mean Anunoby will suddenly stop cleaning up friendly misfires.
The Knicks aren’t enjoying this trend by accident
If you go through the tape, a couple of Anunoby’s preseason offensive boards are of the right-place, right-time variety. A tip-out found its way to him, and the ball essentially bounced directly to him off a missed three.
But he also turned in some scrappy battles around the hoop. He got inside positioning on pretty much every Wizards player off a Jalen Brunson corner three. He used his size and strength to flat-out steal a board that should have gone to Jabari Walker himself against the Sixers. And he straight moved Dean Wade out of the way to grab another one off a Mikal Bridges missed free throw.
These moments aren’t atypical for Anunoby when viewed as standalone occurrences. But the consistency with which he went after offensive rebounds was higher.
That isn’t necessarily going anywhere. Between Karl-Anthony Towns’ outside touch and Andre Drummond’s spacing to the corner, Anunoby will be spending more time on the floor alongside a stretch (or fringe-stretch) big. No, Drummond isn’t winning any three-point contests. But Robinson wasn’t someone New York could just send to the corner.
On those occasions in which Drummond is out there, it limits the Knicks’ second-chance creation. They aren’t going to have their 33-year-old backup crash too hard from that distance. Failed attempts at boarding their own misses could culminate in easy transition buckets for the other team.
Putting more on the shoulders of Anunoby profiles as a potential middle ground. He has the physical tools to prioritize opportunistic crashes, without hanging New York out to try on the break.
Anunoby will never come close to Robinson’s historical dominance on the offensive glass. But for a team that’s ranked in the top 10 of boarding their own misses through each of the past five years, this minor twist can help them preserve one of their core identities without putting it all on the shoulders of KAT and Drummond.
Add us as a preferred source on Google