College Basketball

Season-ending surgery clouds bright future for OG Anunoby

Updated Mar. 4, 2020 3:44 p.m. ET

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Fansided, Peter Nygaard/Fansided

On Friday, Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical reported Indiana forward OG Anunoby would be undergoing right knee surgery in the wake of his injury in last Wednesday’s win over Penn State, effectively ending his sophomore season. While details on the severity of the injury and the timetable for Anunoby’s recovery have been limited, the injury could very well complicate draft matters for the 19-year-old, who sits at No. 10 on the most recent Step Back Big Board.

While significant advancements have been made over the past decade with regards to ACL reconstruction, knee injuries can still be particularly tough, as it’s not always a guarantee that athletes are able to recover their full explosiveness. And if Anunoby is unable to return to physical activity until after the pre-draft process, any team considering him will have to determine whether or not they’re willing to take a leap of faith. That said, if he is able to make anything close to a full recovery, Anunoby is a very intriguing prospect and represents, perhaps, the first strike back for defenses in the modern NBA.

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As the league continues its shift towards “positionless basketball,” a player like Anunoby becomes invaluable on defense. The antidote to an offense that preys on creating mismatches is a flexible defender who can capably switch onto anyone, and defensively, OG Anunoby is Gumby.

In that clip, Anunoby guards three point guards, two centers, two power forwards and a wing. On the last play alone, he digs against 6-foot-11 center Mike Thorne, recovers to stonewall 6-foot-7 forward Leron Black, then switches onto 6-foot-2 point guard Tracy Abrams and does the same to him. Anunoby has the quickness to stay with most guards, the lower-body strength to bang against bigs, and any player with the misfortune of actually being his size ends up getting smothered by his wingspan (which is reportedly 7-foot-6).

That wingspan is the great equalizer for Anunoby. Despite his ability to accelerate quickly, he can sometimes be put on skates when there is a lot of change in direction, and he’s had his share of struggles in navigating screens in the past. However, even when Anunoby is on his heels, his athleticism and wingspan allows him to close on shooters with frightening speed. It also makes him an extremely effective help defender, whether it’s reaching into the lane to force a turnover or coming in from the weak side to block shots. Through a season and a half against top-tier NCAA competition, Anunoby’s career steal and block rates are over three percent and five percent, respectively, putting him in elite company in two categories that project particularly well with regards to NBA success.

The scariest part about OG’s defense is that the few weaknesses teams have been able to exploit seem like relatively easy fixes. Anunoby is an aggressive defender and often tries to poke the ball loose on drives from an off-ball position. Smart teams have been able to take advantage of this predilection by luring him into reaching, and then picking him off with a weak side screen to free up his man. It can also create trouble if he whiffs on his reach attempt and his man fades to the corner for the kick-out, as seen in the Rutgers clip.

Another area where Anunoby can shore up defensively is on the boards. It’s not that Anunoby is a bad rebounder by any means; in fact, he’s perfectly solid for his size. But for someone with the physical tools he has, it feels like he could be so much better than he is. It starts with boxing out. Anunoby is built like a tank and doesn’t seem to have any qualms about throwing his body around to establish position on the inside on the offensive end. So, it can be incredibly frustrating at times to watch a shot go up and see him seemingly indifferent to the notion of putting a body on someone and boxing out.

Part of it seems to be Anunoby, ever the aggressor, tends to leak out to try to jump start the break when he isn’t directly involved in a scrum. Either way, he has so many physical advantages that a stronger commitment to getting on the glass would mean the difference between disrupting opponents’ possessions and ending them.

On the other side of the ball, Anunoby is still fairly raw, to the point it almost feels irresponsible to try to peg what kind of player he can be. The biggest question is his 3-point shooting. On 74 career attempts, almost exclusively spot-ups, Anunoby is shooting 36.5 percent from beyond the arc. That’s a pretty decent number, even if trending downward from last year’s 45 percent mark on a limited sample size. However, considering his inconsistent mechanics and the jarring contrast between his 3-point numbers and his meager free throw percentage of 52.2, it’s fair to wonder if any of that is a mirage. Of course, he’s only attempted 90 free throws, so it’s possible his free throw numbers will regress to a mean much higher than his current average. But that’s a pretty large blanket of uncertainty muddying the waters of Anunoby’s future.

To cut to the heart of the matter — Anunoby needs his shot to fall in order to be able to contribute on the offensive end at the next level. His ability to explode to the rim belies the fact he doesn’t really have any semblance of an in-between game. Anunoby’s offense consists of spot-up 3s, straight-line drives and put-backs. Of his 54 made field goals so far this season, only 19 were neither assisted or a put-back, per Hoop-Math. And many of the baskets OG did create came on straight-line drives.

Though his handle leaves him susceptible to turnovers when he gets crowded, Anunoby has improved his playmaking this year. Building on the threat of his straight-line drives, Anunoby has become fairly adept at pump-faking his defender to create space, drawing a help defender on the drive and dropping a bounce pass to a teammate in space. But that’s a move predicated on him being a threat to shoot. If teams are willing to live with his percentages, the whole house of cards crumbles.

If his 3-pointer is for real, though, things could open up quite a bit for him. Just as on defense, Anunoby’s physical profile makes him a potentially versatile option on offense. If you stick him in the corner, you can curl him off pindown screens to let him build up a head of steam to the rack or, as is often his preference, he can try to beat his man to the baseline and then use his body to create space under the rim.

He’s also flashed some decent post skills, with his combination of explosiveness and length giving him an advantage against plodding types. And he’s been good for a monstrous put-back dunk or two per game. Even if he’s only ever able to progress to average competency in each of those areas, his versatility would still make him a decent asset on offense. Plus, he’s a willing passer and makes good reads.

Put simply, it’s doubtful Anunoby’s offensive game will ever be much more than the sum of its parts, and a lot of his effectiveness is going to be defined by his ability to develop a consistent jump shot. If he does, he will be upwards of “playable” on offense, which will be more than enough to justify playing him for his defense, where his flexibility makes him an incredibly enticing asset for the modern NBA, assuming he’s able to make a full recovery. And as raw as he is on offense, the more minutes he can justifiably play, the better the return is likely to be.

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