There is a literary trope of the traveler escaping his identity simply by crossing a border. Kings become strangers, heroes become ordinary men, princes become paupers. For those burdened by an oversaturation of fame, especially a person with a more sensitive temperament, the escape must be tantalizing: why not abscond someplace where the role you inhabit at home disappears because the people around you don’t know or don’t care about it?
Bouncing seemed like a good idea to Ogugua “OG” Anunoby, Jr. He won an NBA championship in New York City, then booked it to someplace nobody would bother him.
In a recent piece for The Times of London, Anunoby discussed the strange contrast between his celebrity in New York after winning the championship and his relative anonymity in London, where he was born and lived for a few years.
Anunoby is becoming an increasingly visible bridge between the Knicks, British basketball, and the NBA’s broader European ambitions. He told The Times that he believes the UK has enough talent to become a significant basketball country if its infrastructure and development pathways improve.
Every summer he hosts a youth basketball camp in London (and another at Jefferson City High School in Missouri, where he played). This offseason he has put money and presence behind the renovation of a public court in Camden, partnering with local government and the NBPA. Commissioner Adam Silver, keen on expanding the NBA brand overseas, must drool to see OG carry the torch across the pond. Which is ironic, given that Anunoby seems averse to carrying torches, or megaphones.
One of the quietest men in the league, his personality has always contrasted with the theatricality of Madison Square Garden basketball. As could be expected, winning the NBA title has only sharpened that contrast.
Anunoby is no longer simply the high-level complementary player New York acquired from Toronto. His place in Knicks history changed permanently in June, when his Game Four tip-in became the defining play of a championship that ended a five-decade drought. Now he occupies the nebulous space between star and anti-star. While his is an icon in Manhattan, he can apparently walk into a Greggs in London without causing much hullabaloo.
It seems that celebrity is something a community agrees to see, or not. We’ve often seen how it can scramble a person’s eggs (see Britney, Kanye, Charlie Sheen, etc.). In May 2005, during the filming of the third season of Chappelle’s Show, Dave Chappelle abruptly quit and traveled to South Africa for a spiritual retreat, stepping away from a $50 million contract to escape overwhelming fame and growing discomfort over how his comedy was interpreted. One of the allures of Africa was anonymity.
Even I am not immune to the stress of fame. I type this in Bar Harbor, ME, where no one stops celebrities on the sidewalk for selfies and autographs, apparently. I’m a human being, you monsters.
As for the enigmatic Ogugua, he seems to have a healthy understanding of who he is, his place in the world, and how to navigate being an NBA star. Professional sports are increasingly built upon manufactured personalities. Players become brands; brands become content; content becomes an endless plea to look at me. Yet, Anunoby became famous while largely seeming uninterested in becoming famous. He is, above all, grounded. He also made a shot that ensured millions of people would remember him forever.
Knicks in five.
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