OG Anunoby’s Knicks impact still ‘taken for granted’

OG Anunoby unquestionably was the perfect defensive participant on the group with the NBA’s seventh-best defensive ranking. His web ranking was the perfect of any Knick who performed greater than half the season. He was additionally, with little debate, the best player in New York’s first-round playoff victory over the Hawks.

Yet Anunoby stays, within the phrases of his former school coach, “almost taken for granted.” At least on a nationwide degree. In New York, he is serenaded with the “OG, OG” chants. His checking account was rewarded with the biggest contract in Knicks historical past. Mike Walczewski, the longtime Knicks PA man, provides further oomph when asserting Anunoby within the beginning lineup.

But if the Defensive Player of the Year voting was any indication — which it normally is — Anunoby once more will not be a first-team All-Defensive choice. He completed tenth, which implies there is a strong likelihood — however no assure — of a second-team look, representing simply the second of his profession. The star-level recognition — like All-Star consideration, for occasion — has eluded Anunoby.

“That’s always really irritated me at a high level is the national attention he was getting for being such a good two-way player and being a legit first-team all-defense guy,” Tom Crean, who coached Anunoby at Indiana University, stated in an interview with The Post. “That’s what bothered me. Because that’s what he does. And I think that’s sometimes where because he’s not out there like that, people almost take him for granted. That’s kind of what it is.”