How Much Are They Worth?
Celebrity fortunes, explained
How did OG Anunoby build this fortune?
The answer unfolds through the career, earnings, deals and assets behind the headline estimate.
OG Anunoby before the fame
The background and early turning points that shaped OG Anunoby’s route to prominence.
Ogugua Anunoby Jr. was born on 17 July 1997 in Harlesden, north-west London, to Nigerian parents of Igbo descent. His father taught at Oxford Brookes University before a post at Lincoln University in Missouri took the family to America. His mother, Grace Ndidi Okereke, had been a national-level track athlete in Nigeria; she died when he was a year old.
Jefferson City, Missouri, shaped everything that followed. He grew up in the American school system while keeping his British citizenship, calls himself a lifelong Arsenal supporter raised on Thierry Henry, and saw his older brother Chigbo take the other American route out of the same household into the NFL.
Anunoby played at Jefferson City High School as a late developer rather than a national recruit, then spent two seasons at Indiana University from 2015. His college career ended early when he tore a knee ligament in January 2017, and he reached the draft carrying surgery and a question mark.
Toronto took him 23rd overall in the 2017 draft, which put him on the rookie salary scale rather than a lottery pick’s contract. Working from that scale, our calculation is that all four years of the deal paid him roughly $9 million, the last season the biggest at the $3.87 million ESPN reported he was owed for 2020-21. He used those years to become a wing defender who could guard four positions, and Toronto won the 2019 title with him on the roster, though an appendectomy kept him out of the Finals itself.
OG Anunoby’s breakthrough years
The career decisions and defining moments that turned recognition into sustained earning power.
The breakthrough was contractual as much as sporting. In December 2020, with restricted free agency a summer away, Toronto gave him a four-year extension ESPN reported at $72 million, with a player option on the final season. TSN called it good value for the club — a fair signal of how the market read him: worth paying, not yet a maximum player.
That extension began in 2021-22, and is where his earnings turned serious. On the ascending structure of a deal that size, the three seasons he actually played under it paid him about $51.9 million before the Knicks contract replaced the fourth year — so with the rookie scale he had earned roughly $61 million from basketball by 26. He led the league in steals in 2022-23, made the All-Defensive Second Team, and on 30 December 2023 was traded to the New York Knicks.
What OG Anunoby’s work can earn
Reported pay, contracts, royalties and performance income reveal how the fortune was funded.
In July 2024 the Knicks re-signed him on a five-year deal reported by NBC Sports and CBS Sports at $212.5 million, the largest in the franchise’s history. Spotrac sets out the schedule: $36.64 million in 2024-25, $39.57 million in 2025-26, $42.5 million in 2026-27, $45.43 million in 2027-28 and a $48.36 million player option in 2028-29, plus a trade kicker.
Two of those seasons are complete, so the Knicks deal has paid him $76.21 million so far. Career-wide that gives documented playing earnings of about $137 million through the end of 2025-26. The $42.5 million scheduled for 2026-27 and the seasons behind it are future pay rather than present wealth, and stay out of both totals here.
The sporting peak came in June 2026, when New York beat San Antonio 4-1 for a first title in 53 years. Fox 7 Austin recorded his 33 points and the tip-in that completed a 29-point comeback to win Game 4 by 107-106 at Madison Square Garden, the largest in Finals history, and KJZZ reported the 94-90 Game 5 win that clinched it. He averaged 21.2 points and 4.8 rebounds across the series on 52.5 per cent shooting, back from the hamstring strain Eurohoops tracked through the semi-finals.
He is a two-time champion, a two-time All-Defensive Second Team selection and the 2022-23 steals leader, and was part of the Knicks squad that won the 2025 NBA Cup. His old high school retired his jersey in 2021. For a country whose domestic league has never paid anything like American money, a London-born forward on a nine-figure contract is a reference point rather than a footnote.
OG Anunoby’s business beyond the main career
Endorsements, ownership interests and investments can keep compounding long after the initial breakthrough.
His commercial profile is modest next to his contract, the usual pattern for a defensive specialist rather than a scorer: sneaker and apparel arrangements, plus licensing income through the players’ association. Our estimate for that stream is $1.5 million to $3 million since 2021, from the mid-six-figure annual band typical of a starter-level deal across five seasons. It assumes no headline campaign.
His one venture outside basketball ran into someone else’s balance sheet. In April 2023, Hoopsfix reported he had bought a minority stake in the London Lions, alongside majority owner 777 Partners and the minority shareholders Femi Oyeniran and Nicky Walker. He framed it as an investment in British youth development.
Fifteen months later the club was in administration. Eurohoops reported the Lions placed into administration on 30 July 2024 as 777 Partners’ wider business collapsed, and City A.M. covered the rescue, with the Lithuanian technology group Tesonet buying the club out of administration inside a fortnight. A minority shareholding that passes through an administration sale of that kind does not ordinarily survive as a tradeable asset, so the working below carries no value for the stake.
OG Anunoby’s notable luxury item
A reported property or major asset offers a tangible glimpse of the wealth behind the public estimate.
The asset side at this stage of an NBA career is simpler than the salary implies. His pay arrives as scheduled salary rather than equity, subject to the league’s escrow withholding, and a New York-based player is taxed federally, by the state and by the city, plus the away-game taxes other states levy. What that leaves is a retained cash and investment position, and housing in Toronto and New York is counted as a cost of nine seasons rather than a holding.
OG Anunoby’s estimated net worth
Public estimates vary because private contracts, investments, taxes and liabilities are not fully disclosed.
How this estimate is calculated
The documented input is salary: roughly $9 million on the rookie scale, about $51.9 million from three seasons of the $72 million Toronto extension, and $36.64 million plus $39.57 million from the first two Knicks years. Gross career pay through the end of 2025-26 is approximately $137 million, and future contract years are excluded.
From that we take the agent commission the collective agreement caps at 4 per cent, about $5.5 million, and tax. A New York resident carries a combined federal, state and city burden near the top of the league, and his four Toronto seasons were taxed in Canada at higher rates still, so an effective 46 to 50 per cent is the right order — $63 million to $69 million, leaving net career cash of roughly $62 million to $68 million. Against that we set nine seasons of living costs at $1.2 million to $1.8 million a year, add $6 million to $10 million of compounding on early savings, and add $1 million to $2 million of endorsements net of tax.
The working supports a range of $45 million to $75 million, and we publish its midpoint. The softest input is the spend rate, and nothing public pins down whether it runs at $1 million a year or $2.5 million. A New York purchase in his own name, or a figure for what the Lions stake cost, would settle it; until then this number is a function of his contracts rather than of his balance sheet.
Confidence: Partly documented — the $137 million of career salary behind it is published contract by contract, while the retained share is reasoned from tax, fees and a spend assumption.
His public image is almost entirely about the work. He gives few interviews, and the one cause he has attached himself to publicly is British basketball development, the stated reason for the Lions investment. The restraint has a commercial consequence: it keeps the endorsement number small and leaves the contract doing all the work.
The scrutiny has been financial rather than personal. The Knicks contract drew immediate debate about value, because $212.5 million is maximum-player money for a forward who had never averaged 20 points in a regular season. The June 2026 title answered much of it.
The London Lions episode is the other item on the public record, and it exposed his money rather than his conduct. He bought into a club whose majority owner’s empire failed within two years, and the July 2024 administration sat alongside the British Basketball Federation terminating the operating licence of the league the club played in. What the stake cost him sits outside the public record, so this page values it at nothing rather than guessing.