Could ex-Hoosier OG Anunoby be ‘special’ for Toronto -- Darn right


By Pete DiPrimio

OG Anunoby found his voice as he didn’t at Indiana.

He remains a man of few words and big basketball potential. He didn’t overwhelm his Toronto Raptors introductory press conference in a gush of oratory to remind you of, say, Dick Vitale, but he left an impression the best is yet to come.

Take for instance, his ability to guard every position.

“I could do it in high school. I could do it in college. I feel I can still do it now. I think I’m athletic enough, strong enough and smart enough to defend every position.”

If that sounds bold for an NBA rookie, you’d better be bold if you expect to guard some of the best players on the planet; if you think, at 6-8, you can handle the likes of guards Chris Paul, Steph Curry and even Yogi Ferrell, another former Hoosier now playing for the Dallas Mavericks.

“Guarding the perimeter, getting steals and blocks, I love that.”

Anunoby smiles as he says this, looking dapper in a charcoal suit just as he did during draft night in a blue suit and bow-tie.

He is confident in what he can do, and doubt him at your own risk. Some NBA experts think he has the highest upside of anyone in the draft (touting him as the next Kawhi Leonard), a lottery pick who became a gift to Toronto at No. 23 because of last January’s torn ACL.

Anunoby’s pain became the Raptors’ gain.

“We valued him,” Toronto president Masai Ujiri says. “We sat at 23 and waited. We had a couple guys that we liked and we were lucky. Obviously, if he doesn’t have that injury, I don’t think we have a shot.”

Anunoby was an under-the-radar prospect when he arrived at IU in the summer of 2015. A year later he was considered the Big Ten’s best NBA prospect.

Now, despite a knee injury that sidelined him for the final two months of the season, and that will prevent him from full-bore workouts until the fall, he just might be the steal of the draft.

Anunoby says if he had been healthy, he could have gone “in the top five.”

Again, that’s bold talk, but Anunoby is a driven guy. Always has been. Always will.

“I always carried a chip on my shoulder to prove I was better than people thought. Make them regret it.”

He gets no argument from Toronto coach Dwane Casey.

“If it wasn’t for his injury, he would’ve gone a lot higher. He’s one of the guys our scouts targeted and, luckily, he fell to us. There were a lot of teams behind us that were salivating to get him.”

ESPN.com’s Kevin Pelton likes the fit of Anunoby and Toronto. In a tweet he said, “Love love love OG Anunoby for the Raptors. I wish they would have had an older version of him to use on LeBron James the last two years.”

Before the draft, ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla liked the potential. He tweeted that, “OG Anunoby sexy blogger pick. Knee injury not the issue. Excellent defensive potential but limited O, still streak shooter.

“By the way, I love OG Anunoby, especially as a kid. Someone is about to get good value. Most teams I know had him in 20's.”

The big knock on Anunoby is his shooting. While he has three-point range, he wasn’t nearly as accurate as an IU sophomore as he was as a freshman, although he did have a big scoring jump (11.1 points as a sophomore, 4.9 as a freshman).

As a freshman, he was 13-for-29 beyond the arc. The next year he was 14-for-45, 31 percent.
Improving his shot is a big point of emphasis.

“His shot’s not broken,” Casey says. “Like a lot of young players, he just needs repetition and to get in the gym and work on it. That’s something he can do now as he’s going through his rehab and is working on his shot mechanics. His release, it’s there.

“The thing you can’t teach in that situation is the motor, the toughness and the physicality, the size at that position -- what we call the power three. The shot is something that a lot of young players have to work on, anyway.”

Adds Anunoby: “(Toronto) wants me to work on form, keep it consistent, keep getting reps,” he said. “Sometimes I rush it a little bit.”

Improvement will require patience given he’s still rehabbing from January’s knee surgery. He said he can “Jump shoot, work on ball handling, passing. I can do box jumps, single leg jumps, squatting.”

Anunoby says he learned a lot from his one year of playing with Ferrell.

“The importance of watching film. Yogi really studied the game, and taught us that.”

Anunoby has gotten plenty of support from his family. That includes older brother Chigbo, who has played in the NFL for Cleveland, Tennessee and Minnesota.

“It’s helpful. He tells me to work hard and stay focused.”

The goal is to have Anunoby ready by November, although Toronto is not about to rush it. Casey normally doesn’t play healthy rookies a lot, and Anunoby figures to get in plenty of D-League work for the upcoming season.

“We have a plan,” Anunoby says. “We’ll go by that. See how it goes.”

After the injury and surgery, there was some speculation that he would return for another college season. He said, after talking with the IU coaching staff and his family, that he was “ready to go” to the NBA.

“There was no turning back,” he says.

So he stayed in the draft and became a Raptor. He is convinced it will be a good fit.

“They have a family environment. They really cared about me. They really believed in me, that I could be something special.”

How special?

We’re about to find out.

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