Ex‑Raptor OG Anunoby felt Toronto's NBA championship parade topped New York

When Raptors fans packed the streets of Toronto on June 17, 2019, to celebrate the franchise's first NBA championship, it also set an unofficial record for the biggest NBA championship parade in recent memory.

When the New York Knicks won their first championship in 53 years this past season, the city's championship parade definitely gave Toronto a run for its money.

The only player who experienced both, OG Anunoby, finally set the record straight on which one felt bigger.

In an interview with Greg Cally of Sports Illustrated, Anunoby was asked how the New York parade was different from the one in Toronto.

The two-time NBA champion responded by saying that both parades were special for different reasons, though he felt Toronto had New York beat when it came to the sheer number of fans in the streets.

 

 

 

 

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"New York had everything blocked off. In Toronto, everyone was just in the streets," Anunoby said.

"Toronto was much more condensed than this one."

Both the New York and Toronto championship parades were estimated to have more than two million people in attendance on the day. However, the exact numbers would be very hard to determine given that neither was a ticketed event.

Toronto beating New York at something is a tale as old as time. And if a current Knicks player is saying the Toronto one felt bigger, it must be true.

Raptors fans swarm a double-decker bus carrying Kyle Lowry and the NBA's Larry O'Brien Trophy on June 17, 2019. (Dan Hamilton/Imagn Images)

Anunoby was a big part of the Raptors' championship season despite missing the entirety of the playoffs due to an emergency appendectomy at the end of the 2018-19 season.

He spent parts of seven seasons with Toronto before being traded to New York in exchange for RJ Barrett, Immanuel Quickley, and a second-round pick in December 2023.

The 29-year-old had a much bigger playoff role on the path to his second NBA title, setting a single-postseason record for the highest field-goal percentage (67.2 per cent) with at least 150 attempts in NBA history.