O.G. Anunoby is a defensive unicorn. How will that impact his contract talks with the Raptors?

Somehow, it was understandable that Nick Nurse forgot about Kawhi Leonard for a moment.

Asked what position O.G. Anunoby plays for the Raptors on defence, Nurse was at a loss for the last time Anunoby even guarded someone at his own position. He’s spent the last few weeks — years, really, — switching from the Bradley Beals and DeMar DeRozans of the league to the Nikola Jokices. Wherever he’s deployed, Anunoby can’t do the impossible and completely silence opposing superstars, but he significantly limits their impact, decreasing touches and field-goal attempts, a one-man PPE against the dangers of the NBA.

“He’s positionless. Positionless defence,” Nurse said. “He’s probably optimal at his position, a wing player. Probably. But he does so good on two-guards and bigs when he needs to, as well.

He hasn’t really guarded his position in the last several games.”

Someone then reminded Nurse that Anunoby recently guarded his old teammate in Leonard. Nurse accepted the assist, though he would have been justified in pushing back. Leonard is a forward, nominally the same spot on the floor as Anunoby. But the reason Anunoby doesn’t guard his own position is because he’s truly positionless; how do you guard a spot that only you play?

And more to the point for this offseason or next: How do you value a player, contractually, who has so few comparables at the highest levels of defence?

So, if Anunoby is so good defensively, why was he the subject of trade rumours heading into the NBA trade deadline? There are competing theories, but the primary takeaway should be that other teams value Anunoby highly and wanted to see what it might cost to get him. When the asking price was extremely high, that tends to get leaked. As does Anunoby’s desire to have a larger role on offence, something that never came from him directly but is reasonable to believe since it applies to about 400 players in the NBA at a given time.

That Anunoby wasn’t deemed completely untouchable, to our knowledge, could take us into the weeds of the collective bargaining agreement. That would be very painful … for you.

Anunoby’s theoretical availability is not just about offensive role, it’s about the limits the current CBA puts on contract extensions. The Raptors can only promise so much offensive opportunity, and even those promises would require Anunoby’s trust in their legitimacy, and his own play to continue improving. An extension would at least show Anunoby hey, we believe in you continuing to grow, here’s the money that says as much, keep growing with us and worst-case scenario, we’ve already paid you as if your role has grown. At least then, if Anunoby is worried about a limited offensive profile hurting his free agent market, that’s a 2028 problem, not a 2024 problem.

That conversation is a non-starter under the current rules around contract extensions. The CBA the league is working under right now is incredibly restrictive for extensions. Extensions are easy enough for max-contract level players, for first-round picks finishing up their rookie deals, and for players whose extensions don’t figure to be much larger than the league-average salary. For most players in that meaty range between slightly above-average and max-contract, extension talks won’t go very far.

Fred VanVleet and the Raptors, for example, didn’t get too deep on extension talks this past summer because the maximum VanVleet could get in an extension was significantly lower than his maximum as a free agent; even if VanVleet isn’t a max-contract player, as a free agent there’s a wider band of outcomes to negotiate within.

This is where Anunoby and the Raptors would find themselves this summer, if nothing changes at the CBA level: Willing to offer him the maximum possible extension when he becomes eligible on Oct. 1, a number that Anunoby would quickly decline. That would leave Anunoby headed toward unrestricted free agency in 2024 if he declines his 2024-25 player option.

That’s because the most the Raptors could offer Anunoby on an extension under the current rules is four years and $100.2 million.

That’s a lot of money in real terms, to be sure. The salary cap is projected to continue rising pretty quickly, though, and it’s helpful to look at player salaries in terms of how much of the cap they take up, so that we can better compare apples and oranges. The current rules would let Anunoby secure a raise from $18.64 million in 2023-24 (and a $19.93-million option for 2024-25) to $22.37 million in 2024-25. That 20 per cent raise only amounts to a small change in how much of the cap Anunoby is taking up, from 14.04 per cent to 15.64 per cent.

Anunoby probably cares more about the actual money than the cap hit, but how much of the cap a player takes up is a decent proxy for how valuable they are compared to other players around the league. If Anunoby wants an increase in salary to signal an increase in perceived value or stature in the league, he may feel he’s due a larger raise. It’s also a helpful way to gauge what his market might be — would some team be willing to give more than 15.64 per cent of their cap to Anunoby? Almost definitely.

So there won’t be much happening on extension talks. Unless. Unless.

The NBA and NBPA are currently in the process of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. Both sides have the option to opt out of the current deal by March 31, a date that has been pushed back a couple of times as they get closer on a new agreement. Part of those discussions have focused on these extension rules, as the league wants teams to have a better chance of keeping their players and the union wants players to be able to secure long-term money sooner. Loosening the restrictions on extensions feels like a win-win.

The timing here is something to watch. If a new CBA is agreed upon by March 31 (or whenever they extend that deadline to), there’s a possibility it wouldn’t affect Anunoby’s situation. After all, the current CBA runs to June 30, 2024. Anunoby’s negotiating window is still within the current CBA, not a new one. However, in asking around the league, the expectation is that one of two things would happen that affect Anunoby: The league and union would opt out of the current CBA and install the new CBA effective July 1, 2023, or they would at least pull ahead certain changes so that one class of players aren’t disproportionately affected. That is, either the new CBA would take hold by Anunoby’s Oct. 1, 2023 extension window, or the extension rules would at least be amended ahead of time.

The latest reporting from Shams Charania of The Athletic is that the league and union are discussing changing that 20 per cent maximum raise on an extension to 40 per cent, or even 50 per cent. That would significantly change the negotiations for Anunoby and the Raptors.

Anunoby’s maximum extension possibilities are as follows:

— Current contract: $18.64 million for 2023-24, $19.93 million player option for 2024-25, 14.04 percent of the cap, 83^rd percentile salary in the league
— Current extension rules, at 120 per cent: Four years, $100.2 million, 15.64 percent of the cap, 85^th percentile salary in the league
— New extension rules, at 140 per cent: Four years, $116.9 million, 18.25 percent of the cap, 88^th percentile salary in the league
— New extensions rules, at 150 per cent: Four years, $125.3 million, 19.56 percent of the cap, 89^th percentile salary in the league

This isn’t to suggest Anunoby should receive the maximum possible extension, necessarily, but this expands the range the two sides have to negotiate within. At least now the upper bound is higher and an extension is plausible. Whether it gets done is another thing. Options help.

To visualize that change, consider this distribution of salaries in the league. It’s a very top-heavy league, and a player in Anunoby’s position is probably aiming for as close to that 25 per cent max line as possible, if not higher. The new rules would at least allow the Raptors to get closer, and maybe manage the injury risk for Anunoby as he debates extension versus free agency.

(An aside: I haven’t been able to confirm how the next CBA intends to handle extend-and-trade transactions. Under the current rules, Anunoby’s camp is very unlikely to accept any extend-and-trade deal. An Anunoby trade would instead be about securing his Bird rights to be able to re-sign him when he becomes a free agent. I do not expect extend-and-trade rules to change much.)

Those rule changes are important. So, too, is figuring out how to value Anunoby.

The basics are pretty straightforward. Over the last three seasons, Anunoby has averaged 16.6 points per-game without much variability, has hit 37.7 per cent of his threes, is near the top of the league in everything we can measure on defence, and has struggled to play a full season’s worth of games but is a premier minutes-eater when available.

Beyond that, things are complicated. Anunoby is only 25 but he’s also six years into his career, developmentally. He’s “injury prone” by games played but most of what’s kept him out and have been unfortunate random breaks, not anything consistent or recurring. He’s an elite catch-and-shoot weapon in the corners but likes to try his hand at less efficient off-dribble threes. He’s flashed pick-and-roll, mid-range, and post-up ability but not at much volume, and sometimes quite inefficiently. And there is a lot we can’t measure on defence.

A team could look at those descriptors and see Anunoby as someone with even more to tap into offensively, a la Mikal Bridges, a potential low-end All-Star if things break right. Others might look at it and see him topped out as the league’s best role player, a souped-up Josh Hart who can turn the next Knicks from fun regular season story to real playoff threat. Others still may like Anunoby plenty yet be skeptical of how much he moves the needle if he’s not being dropped in among a win-now core.

For the sake of argument, let’s assume for a second that everyone agrees he’s best cast as an elite 3-and-D weapon, not someone you’re going to run a ton of plays for. (That’s up for reasonable debate, this is just an exercise.) What is this level of defender worth?

Comparisons are hard in the easiest of situations. Comparisons for such an extreme outlier defensively are much harder. What we can measure defensively screams that Anunoby is one of, if not the best defender in the league. Given the recent trend away from only giving centres the Defensive Player of the Year award, Anunoby has a very real argument for the award, an award he almost surely won’t get.

(No winner has come from a team with fewer than 45 wins since Dikembe Mutombo on the 1994-95 Nuggets. Only one other time has it come from a team with fewer than 48 in that span, and that was Marcus Camby on the 2006-07 Nuggets. You can apparently only win DPOY on a mediocre team if you’re in Denver. Oh, and Alvin Robertson for the 1985-86 San Antonio Spurs is the only player on a team with a losing record to win the award.)

Even with DPOY a longshot, Anunoby should be a near-lock for an All-Defensive Team spot, barring an injury down the stretch. While he did miss 14 games, he’s 54^th in the league in total minutes played on the season, which should clear anyone’s personal threshold for playing time in awards voting.

In those minutes, Anunoby ranks:

— Third in the NBA in defensive EPM, my preferred catch-all defensive metric for per-possession impact. Only Alex Caruso and DPOY favourite Jaren Jackson Jr. grade higher. Both of those players have played significantly less than Anunoby this year, by the way.

— In case you prefer other catch-alls, Anunoby ranks 50^th among 774 players in luck-adjusted defensive RAPM, which regresses a whole bunch of factors to try to smooth out multi-year noise. He also grades well in D-RAPTOR, D-LEBRON, D-RPM, D-DPM, JD-Bunkis, and any other D-whatever you can find online. None of those metrics are evidence enough on their own, but there is strong cross-method agreement that Anunoby has a strong defensive impact.

— 93^rd percentile among wings in steal percentage and first in the NBA in steals per-game.

— 91^st percentile among wings in block percentage.

— 85^th percentile among all players in impact on team defensive rebounding.

— We don’t use defensive field-goal percentage for non-centres but if we did, he ranks fourth among non-centres in that, too.

— Fun with play types; Per Synergy, Anunoby ranks in the 74^th percentile or higher defending against hand-offs, off screens, on post-ups and, of course, in isolation situations. When opponents make the mistake of trying Anunoby one-on-one, they are shooting 21-of-65 with 11 turnovers. I’m not a big fan of defensive field-goal percentage for other play types because of all the context necessary within a team’s defence, but if that’s your thing, he ranks second, fourth, and fourth in opponent effective field-goal percentage when defending post-ups, screens, and isolations, respectively.

The consistent positive impacts across a number of different ways to look at defence helps insulate us from some of the flaws in defensive metrics. In addition to, obviously, a very straight-forward defensive eye test.

And somehow that doesn’t feel like it does Anunoby’s unicorn nature justice, because not only is he extremely good, there’s almost nobody who is as versatile, let alone as successful being versatile. Using matchup-classification data from NBA.com — grain of salt alert! — and some help from BBall Index, Anunoby shares a class with only young teammate Scottie Barnes when it comes to versatility on the defensive end.

While it’s amusing that Barnes is the one player topping Anunoby in positional versatility, it makes sense, since if one defender is changing assignments a bunch, someone else on that team is, too. Anunoby has some peers for defensive versatility, but he’s essentially peerless when it comes to versatility and matchup difficulty, save for Dorian Finney-Smith, whom he outperforms by most measures available to us.

I also included a few offensive numbers to highlight that Anunoby is also among the better players within this group of versatile defenders when it comes to scoring in transition and knocking down catch-and-shoot threes. When we narrow to look at versatile defenders guarding tough opponents who contribute in transition and can knock down a three, we get a Who’s Who of elite role players.

Those contracts are all over the place, so keep in mind that Anunoby is the youngest player in that sample group and has the strongest defensive metrics, for however much stock you put into those. Anunoby probably can’t ask for Andrew Wiggins money since the situations are so dissimilar, but Jerami Grant’s contract translates to 16.8 per cent of the cap … which happens to be exactly in the range the Raptors and Anunoby could negotiate under the new — but not old — CBA rules for extensions.

It's hard to know how Anunoby, the Raptors, and other teams will weigh all of these factors. Other changes coming in the new CBA will also have an impact on the economic environment for the upper non-All-Star tier of players.

For now, the changes we’re expecting make it feel slightly more possible the Raptors could jump the market and extend Anunoby. It’s going to get costlier to have Anunoby forcing all of these misses. In other words: price of the bricks going up.