Former NBA executive slams OG Anunoby extension

Former NBA executive slams OG Anunoby extension

The New York Knicks may have had one of the most active offseasons leaguewide. They traded five unprotected first-round picks–plus an unprotected swap and three players–to the Nets for Mikal Bridges. Also among their list of moves was re-signing star point guard Jalen Brunson to a team-friendly deal, easing their cap situation as opposed to taking an loftier extension a year from now.

Another one of their notable moves was re-signing forward OG Anunoby–who they traded for ahead of last year’s trade deadline–to a five-year, $212 million max extension. Recently, ESPN analyst and former Phoenix Suns executive Amin Elhassan voiced his disagreement with the move from the Knicks’ perspective.

“I’m saying when you guarantee every last dollar of $212 million to a guy who’s been extremely injury-prone, including this awesome season you just had with him where he missed a bunch of time,” he said on a recent appearance on Sirius XM Radio. “You have to protect yourself somewhere. Ideally, you have to protect yourselves in the language of the contract. It sounds like the Knicks protected themselves to Jalen Brunson.

“I think in a perfect world, he earns every last dollar of his contract. But, alas, we don’t live in a perfect world.”

Anunoby has had difficulty staying on the court over the last four seasons due to various injuries. Last year, he appeared in just 50 games, averaging 14.7 points, 4.2 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.4 steald on 48.9 percent shooting and 38.2 percent from 3-point range with the Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks.

He’s played in at least 62 percent of his games just once over that four-year duration after appearing in 90.2, 81.7 and 95.3 percent of his team’s available regular season contests over his first three seasons, respectively. The Knicks were incredibly successful whenever Anunoby played, going a combined 26-6 with a plus-16.3 NET whenever he was on the court. Unfortunately, Anunoby wasn’t always on the court, missing four of the seven games against Indiana in the Eastern Conference Finals due to a hamstring injury after missing 27 regular season games with an elbow injury.

Injuries happen; unfortunately, it’s a part of sports. Some injuries are way more random than, say, soft tissue injuries. Teams also persevere in the postseason due to positive injury luck; playing 100-plus games is a marathon, not a sprint. If the Knicks can remain healthy through the duration of the season–it has as good of a chance as anyone at making a deep postseason run.

Whether or not that will happen is the question, however, especially since head coach Tom Thibodeau loves to play his best players a lot of minutes, you know? That wear-and-tear will catch up to most players, eventually.

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