OG Anunoby may have found a small but useful way to help the Knicks absorb life without Mitchell Robinson.
During his four preseason appearances, Anunoby showed a noticeable bump in offensive rebounding, and that could matter for a New York team looking for ways to keep second chances alive. It’s a preseason wrinkle, sure, so the sample comes with all the usual caution tape. Even so, the numbers jump off the page.
In nearly 86 minutes, Anunoby collected nine offensive rebounds. That worked out to 10 percent of the Knicks’ misses while he was on the floor.
For a player who has never finished a full season above a 5 percent offensive rebounding rate, that’s a real spike. His playoff high sits around 7 percent, and his preseason career best had been even lower than that.
The broader picture makes it stand out even more. For a player listed at 6-foot-7 or shorter, that kind of rate is rare. Last season, only two players at that height or below - Justin Champagnie and Jabari Walker - posted an offensive rebounding rate of 10 or better, and neither logged anywhere near Anunoby’s minutes.
The encouraging part for the Knicks is that this wasn’t all empty stat-padding from loose bounces and lucky caroms. A few of Anunoby’s boards came from the kind of hustle plays that show up when a player decides to hunt the glass.
There was a tip-out that landed his way, and another rebound that nearly bounced straight to him after a missed three. But he also won real battles.
He got inside position on basically every Wizards player after a Jalen Brunson corner three. He muscled Jabari Walker out of the way for one board against the Sixers.
He also shoved Dean Wade aside to secure another off a Mikal Bridges missed free throw.
Those moments are hardly foreign to Anunoby. What changed was how often he went after them.
That could be part of the plan. With Karl-Anthony Towns providing outside touch and Andre Drummond spacing to the corner, Anunoby is going to spend more time next to a big who stretches the floor, or at least doesn’t live under the rim like Mitchell Robinson does. Drummond can’t be asked to dive into every offensive glass battle from that spot, and if New York misses those chances, it can open the door to easy runouts for the other team.
So the Knicks may have found a workable middle ground: let Anunoby shoulder more of the crash-and-clean-up duty. He’s strong enough and athletic enough to pick his spots without putting New York in a bad transition situation.
He won’t replace Robinson’s offensive rebounding power. That’s not the point. But for a team that has ranked in the top 10 in offensive rebounding for each of the past five years, this little shift could help keep that part of its identity intact without asking too much of Towns or Drummond.
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