NEW YORK — Knicks president Leon Rose took a calculated risk.

It was December of 2023, and an ascendant Knicks core was only eight months removed from the franchise’s first playoff-series victory in a decade.

But to achieve a higher ceiling, the Knicks needed a go-to defensive stopper.

They needed a third scoring option who could better complement Jalen Brunson and Julius Randle.

They needed OG Anunoby.

So in a midseason blockbuster, the Knicks traded a pair of young, productive former first-round picks in RJ Barrett and Immanuel Quickley to the Toronto Raptors as part of a package for the forward Anunoby, whom they believed would elevate them on both ends of the court.

Less than three years later, that big swing is one of the biggest reasons the Knicks are back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.

And with all-world San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama now standing in the way of the Knicks’ first championship since 1973, Anunoby’s defensive versatility looms larger than ever.

“At that size and athleticism and IQ, feel, two-way player — you want a guy like OG on your team,” Knicks head coach Mike Brown said of Anunoby earlier this postseason.

“And as we continue to move along, you really get a better sense, or a better feel, of his feel for the game.”

Indeed, the do-it-all Anunoby is the kind of player any championship-hopeful team would covet.

Anunoby, 28, ranks second in scoring (19.7 points per game), third in rebounding (6.9 per game) and second in steals (1.6 per game) among Knicks players this postseason.

He’s shooting 57.7% from the field and 48.3% on 3-pointers. He excels as a floor spacer, as a cutter and in transition. With a true shooting percentage of 72.4%, Anunoby has been the Knicks’ most efficient starter.

And at 6-7 with a 7-2 wingspan, Anunoby boasts the size, length and athleticism to defend any position — and do it well.

In these playoffs alone, Anunoby has spent considerable time guarding high-scoring wings including Jalen Johnson and Paul George; floor-stretching big men such as Onyeka Okongwu and Evan Mobley; and a more traditional center in Jarrett Allen.

Overall, opposing players this postseason have watched their field-goal percentages drop by 4.3% when they’re defended by Anunoby.

“I think he’s one of a kind,” Jalen Brunson said recently. “Getting to see his work ethic and see the person he is, and then what he’s just been able to do with his time as a Knick, has been great. I’m so happy to have him.”

Of course, nobody Anunoby has guarded is quite as dangerous as Wembanyama, a 7-4 specimen who can shoot, run, drive, post up and devastate on the receiving end of a lob.

Knicks centers Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson also figure to be factors in defending Wembanyama, who, at 22, just finished third in NBA MVP voting.

But the sturdy Anunoby, a second-team All-Defensive selection, possesses the physicality to prevent Wembanyama from just waltzing to his spots. The 240-pound Anunoby spent considerable time matched up with Wembanyama in two of the Knicks’ three meetings with the Spurs this season, including in the NBA Cup final.

“The luxury of having a guy like [Anunoby] is he’s long enough, athletic enough, strong enough to guard quick, smaller guys,” Brown said this week.

“He’s obviously got the size and athleticism to guard big wings, and then he’s got the strength and the length and the intelligence to guard bigger guys. So, having a guy like that gives us a ton of versatility to be able to move him around.”

Acquiring Anunoby did not come cheaply.

Barrett was the No. 3 pick in the 2019 NBA draft. Quickley was the runner-up for 2022 NBA Sixth Man of the Year. Both were popular among the Knicks’ fan base.

At the time, Anunoby was an impending free agent. (He would sign a five-year, $212.5 million contract the following summer that solidified him as one of the Knicks’ main building blocks.)

But Anunoby represented an immediate upgrade over Barrett, and the Knicks were unlikely to sign Quickley — who was behind Brunson and Josh Hart on the depth chart — to the big-money extension he sought.

Anunoby fit in immediately with Brunson, Randle, Hart and others, and the Knicks won 14 of the first 16 games that Anunoby played in.

Even after a dislocated shoulder that January ended Randle’s season, the Knicks appeared poised for a run to the Eastern Conference finals. They took a 2-0 lead in the second round against the Indiana Pacers, but Anunoby suffered a left hamstring strain in Game 2 of that series.

That proved to be the turning point, as Anunoby missed the next four games, then lasted only five minutes when he attempted to return for Game 7. The Knicks lost that game, and that series, due in large part to Anunoby’s absence.

That’s why the Knicks held their collective breath when Anunoby suffered a right hamstring strain in Game 2 of their second-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers this year.

Fortunately for them, this strain was far less serious, and after Anunoby sat out of Games 3 and 4 in the Sixers series, he returned — and played well — in the Knicks’ Eastern Conference Finals sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

“We have a great team,” Anunoby said after the Knicks’ series-clinching Game 4 win over the Cavs — their 11th straight victory.

“We’ve put in a lot of work. We’re very well-coached and very well-prepared, and it showed on the court. The way we play offensively and defensively, the way we’re executing, we play for each other.”

Anunoby was a second-year player on the Raptors team that upset the dynastic Golden State Warriors to win the NBA Finals in 2019, but he sat out of Toronto’s entire postseason run following an emergency appendectomy that April.

That means these NBA Finals will be the first that Anunoby actually gets to play in.

“I was younger back then,” Anunoby said last week, “so I didn’t realize how hard it is to get back.”

Not that he needs any more motivation.

“Getting back is amazing,” Anunoby added. “It takes a lot, and I’m really excited.”

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