From the start of his NBA career, it was important for a reporter to consider one question above all others when speaking with OG Anunoby: How much of this is schtick?From the moment the Toronto Raptors drafted him in 2017, Anunoby offered up a mix of cliches and sentence fragments when sharing his thoughts. He was not being aloof, nor was he unable to express himself if he chose to. He just prized economy and brevity. Beyond that, he seemed thoroughly unimpressed with life in the NBA — not that he didn’t enjoy it, just that he wasn’t in awe of achieving a lifelong dream or playing in the best league in the world.So when I woke up on Thursday morning, I was not at all surprised that Anunoby, the New York Knicks wing who tipped home perhaps the biggest single shot in Madison Square Garden history to complete his team’s historic comeback in Game 4 of the NBA Finals, had to issue the following clarification:“It feels cool. Everyone’s pretty excited.”Beat.“I’m excited, too.”First of all, “It’s cool,” delivered with an absence of vocal intonation, was practically Anunoby’s catchphrase during the first six-plus years of his career, spent in Toronto with the Raptors. Also, as so many of his teammates grinned widely, yelped and celebrated — never mind how Knicks fans were reacting — of course Anunoby was selling the moment as if it happened in February against Chicago. After he delivered trite, factual response after trite, factual response in the post-game interview with ESPN’s Lisa Salters, play-by-play broadcaster Mike Breen commented on how calm Anunoby seemed.As someone who covered Anunoby for the first part of his career, I can say it was either an entirely genuine reaction or part of an elaborate one-man inside joke to keep himself entertained. All of it was perfectly aligned with the person I covered with the Raptors. Assuming it’s not an act, you also have to assume it’s a personality type that has set him up perfectly to thrive in this moment, with the league’s most snakebitten franchise on the precipice of winning its first title in 53 years for the biggest, most championship-starved, damaged-by-history fans in the NBA.Anunoby was born in London to Nigerian parents of Igbo descent. He purchased a minority share of the London Lions of Super League Basketball, the men’s pro league in Great Britain, and has spoken about his desire to inspire young players there.However, in the Raptors’ locker room at Scotiabank Arena, where the flag of a player’s home country is beside the name at his stall, Anunoby’s featured the green-and-white Nigerian flag. His mother, Grace Ndidi Okereke, was a track and field athlete for the Nigerian team before dying of cancer when OG was just one. His father, with whom he shared a name, Ogugua, was a finance professor who moved the family to Jefferson City, Mo., when OG was just four to take a job at Lincoln University, a historically Black school in the city. Ogugua Anunoby Sr. died in September 2018, just before OG’s second season began. He missed two stints with the Raptors because of the loss — one for memorial services in Jefferson City, and another for the burial in Nigeria.Ogugua roughly translates to “the one who brings peace” in some translations. Chigbo Anunoby, OG’s older brother by eight years, spent time with five different NFL franchises over four years as a defensive lineman, but was out of the league by the time the Raptors drafted OG with the 23rd pick in the 2017 NBA Draft. Chigbo was with OG when the latter met the Toronto media for the first time after the draft, and helped his younger brother with the transition to the league. However, OG showed he was ready for the league quickly, starting 62 of his 74 games for the Raptors, who went 59-23 and finished first in the Eastern Conference.Anunoby was quickly in the middle of big playoff moments, preparing him for Wednesday. He had an actual buzzer-beater in a polar opposite playoff atmosphere, during the 2020 playoffs in the NBA Bubble against the Boston Celtics. With the Raptors, trying to defend their title without Kawhi Leonard, trailing 2-0 in the Eastern Conference semifinal, down by two points within the final second of the game, Anunoby’s teammate Kyle Lowry had to loft an inbound pass over 7-foot-6 Tacko Fall. It landed right in Anunoby’s shooting pocket, and he splashed it home.Again, Anunoby’s teammates went bananas, while he almost betrayed a smile.