From the start of his NBA career, it was important for a reporter to consider one question above all others when speaking with OG Anunoby: How much of this is schtick?
From the moment the Toronto Raptors drafted him in 2017, Anunoby offered up a mix of cliches and sentence fragments when sharing his thoughts. He was not being aloof, nor was he unable to express himself if he chose to. He just prized economy and brevity. Beyond that, he seemed thoroughly unimpressed with life in the NBA — not that he didn’t enjoy it, just that he wasn’t in awe of achieving a lifelong dream or playing in the best league in the world.
So when I woke up on Thursday morning, I was not at all surprised that Anunoby, the New York Knicks wing who tipped home perhaps the biggest single shot in Madison Square Garden history to complete his team’s historic comeback in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, had to issue the following clarification:
“It feels cool. Everyone’s pretty excited.”
Beat.
“I’m excited, too.”
First of all, “It’s cool,” delivered with an absence of vocal intonation, was practically Anunoby’s catchphrase during the first six-plus years of his career, spent in Toronto with the Raptors. Also, as so many of his teammates grinned widely, yelped and celebrated — never mind how Knicks fans were reacting — of course Anunoby was selling the moment as if it happened in February against Chicago. After he delivered trite, factual response after trite, factual response in the post-game interview with ESPN’s Lisa Salters, play-by-play broadcaster Mike Breen commented on how calm Anunoby seemed.
As someone who covered Anunoby for the first part of his career, I can say it was either an entirely genuine reaction or part of an elaborate one-man inside joke to keep himself entertained. All of it was perfectly aligned with the person I covered with the Raptors. Assuming it’s not an act, you also have to assume it’s a personality type that has set him up perfectly to thrive in this moment, with the league’s most snakebitten franchise on the precipice of winning its first title in 53 years for the biggest, most championship-starved, damaged-by-history fans in the NBA.
Anunoby was born in London to Nigerian parents of Igbo descent. He purchased a minority share of the London Lions of Super League Basketball, the men’s pro league in Great Britain, and has spoken about his desire to inspire young players there.
However, in the Raptors’ locker room at Scotiabank Arena, where the flag of a player’s home country is beside the name at his stall, Anunoby’s featured the green-and-white Nigerian flag. His mother, Grace Ndidi Okereke, was a track and field athlete for the Nigerian team before dying of cancer when OG was just one. His father, with whom he shared a name, Ogugua, was a finance professor who moved the family to Jefferson City, Mo., when OG was just four to take a job at Lincoln University, a historically Black school in the city. Ogugua Anunoby Sr. died in September 2018, just before OG’s second season began. He missed two stints with the Raptors because of the loss — one for memorial services in Jefferson City, and another for the burial in Nigeria.
Ogugua roughly translates to “the one who brings peace” in some translations. Chigbo Anunoby, OG’s older brother by eight years, spent time with five different NFL franchises over four years as a defensive lineman, but was out of the league by the time the Raptors drafted OG with the 23rd pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. Chigbo was with OG when the latter met the Toronto media for the first time after the draft, and helped his younger brother with the transition to the league. However, OG showed he was ready for the league quickly, starting 62 of his 74 games for the Raptors, who went 59-23 and finished first in the Eastern Conference.
Anunoby was quickly in the middle of big playoff moments, preparing him for Wednesday. He had an actual buzzer-beater in a polar opposite playoff atmosphere, during the 2020 playoffs in the NBA Bubble against the Boston Celtics. With the Raptors, trying to defend their title without Kawhi Leonard, trailing 2-0 in the Eastern Conference semifinal, down by two points within the final second of the game, Anunoby’s teammate Kyle Lowry had to loft an inbound pass over 7-foot-6 Tacko Fall. It landed right in Anunoby’s shooting pocket, and he splashed it home.
Again, Anunoby’s teammates went bananas, while he almost betrayed a smile.
Act like you’ve been there before. Anunoby has.
The quality you’ll find in almost every clutch player across sport is composure. You can’t be fazed by the bright lights or big moments. You’ve gotta be calm, cool and collected to execute under pressure. Nobody’s cooler than OG. pic.twitter.com/DZifmxd3E3
— Josh Lewenberg (@JLew1050) June 11, 2026
“I don’t shoot to miss,” Anunoby said after that game.
It sounded like a brag, but Anunoby delivered it at face value. Why should he be amazed by a shot falling, since he had worked on improving that former weakness since he came into the league from Indiana? (Perhaps the enduring lesson of those two game-winners: Don’t put a historically huge guy on the floor at the same time as Anunoby if you want to win.)
But Anunoby’s playoff credentials go back to that rookie year. He got into a near fight in his first-ever playoff road game, getting shoved from behind by seventh-year forward Markieff Morris (6-foot-9, 245 pounds) after Anunoby yanked him to the ground, trying to deny him positioning. Anunoby pushed him right back, offering the veteran a “Why would you do that?” look in the process.
In those same playoffs, Anunoby capped off a huge comeback — sound familiar? — with a game-tying 3 in transition against the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James, the Raptors’ half-decade-long tormenters, before becoming the foremost victim of one of James’ many forever moments to end that game. Anunoby seemed overwhelmed by exactly none of it. Later during his Raptors tenure, he played along with his teammates, wearing a T-shirt of James hitting the shot over him. (While we’re on Anunoby’s viral fashion-related moments, the “What about scarves?” scene from then-teammate Serge Ibaka’s online series is required viewing.)
It’s not the history that guaranteed Anunoby would shine in this type of atmosphere, although it surely helps; it’s the mindset. Anunoby, as a rookie, spent a playoff series guarding James better than any Raptor had previously. As a third-year player who missed the 2019 championship run because of an emergency appendectomy, he replaced Leonard in the starting lineup. The Raptors were as good a regular-season team as they had been with the two-time finals MVP.
Along the way, Anunoby seemed neither shaken nor wowed. To Anunoby, everything was just another step in his development. He was similarly unaffected by the highs and the lows. So it stands to reason that he would not be troubled by any talk of curses, or ghosts or ending playoff droughts.
That’s not to say Anunoby was destined for this. Anunoby took just 74 3s in 50 career college games, and shot 52.2 percent on his 47 free throws. It is a long way from there to entering Saturday’s potential clincher with the best true-shooting percentage, which factors in the added importance of 3s and free-throw attempts, of any non-center in a single playoff run (minimums: 10 games, 50 field-goal attempts and 20 3-point attempts). That is a credit to all the coaches who worked with Anunoby in Toronto and New York, but to Anunoby most of all. Anunoby’s balance on offense has also caught up with his work on the other end. He would regularly lose his footing on drives early in his career. In these playoffs, he has played through contact, finishing with force on the move.
There has also been a necessary maturation process. Behind the scenes with the Raptors, there was always talk that Anunoby craved a bigger offensive role than he had — first behind DeMar DeRozan, then Leonard, then Pascal Siakam. While timing more than anything dictated Anunoby’s trade out of Toronto, the possibility that he would never get the spotlight and offensive burden he wanted with the Raptors was a factor.
Well, his offensive usage, which measures how often he finishes a play with a shot attempt, free throws or a turnover, has remained right around league average in New York, the same mark he hovered around in his last two Toronto years. That mark has crept lower, not higher, in the playoffs.
But Anunoby has quite obviously embraced it, or he wouldn’t be playing this well. Making $40 million annually (and rising) surely helps breed role acceptance, as does the high-level winning. That shouldn’t discount the mental and attitudinal work that has to be done to get to this place.
Alas, dunking over Victor Wembanyama, whose mere presence near the rim has spooked drivers all year long? Staying with De’Aaron Fox to block a shot as the Spurs point guard had a lapse in judgment? Crashing the glass and tipping in the biggest shot in the history of “The Mecca?” None of that was going to be big for Anunoby.
Because Anunoby? He’s cool.
