Erik Horne: Final: Grizzlies 121, Thunder 92. A blasting from the previously 0-4 Grizz. Thunder will drop sixth in the Western Conference going into the weekend. Paul 17-5-5, 4 stls Dort 16-3-2 Gallinari 12 p SGA 10-3-3 (3-of-13 FGA)
Danilo Gallinari Rumors
All NBA Players
Position: F
Born: 08/08/88
Height: 6-10 / 2.08
Weight:225 lbs. / 102.1 kg.
Salary: $22,615,559
Born: 08/08/88
Height: 6-10 / 2.08
Weight:225 lbs. / 102.1 kg.
Salary: $22,615,559
Brandon Rahbar: Danilo Gallinari on Andre Roberson: “On the defensive end, he’s the key. He can guard anybody. On offense he’s unselfish. He has a very high IQ.” The high praise for Dre continues across the board. And as we’ve seen in the scrimmages, it’s not just hype.
Brandon Rahbar: Danilo Gallinari on the Thunder’s improvement from the start is the season: “We got better as the season went along. Now it’s a new beginning. We need to get back to the rhythm we had. We are pretty close.”
Brandon Rahbar: On replacing Schroder when he’s out, Donovan mentioned CP3, Shai, Gallo and even Steven Adams as play makers. Billy’s not wrong. After all, on a team with 3 stud point guards, Adams has the best pass of the year.
Brandon Rahbar: Muscala says Gallinari has beat him in every post game shooting drill they do. “He’s someone I looked up to. It’s been a joy to be able to play with him.”
Brandon Rahbar: Donovan on Gallinari: “I have really enjoyed working with Gallo. He’s a great guy. He’s a great teammate. He’s been a great leader. He’s a great guy to play with because he’s unselfish. He’s an offensive mismatch. He’s a special offensive player.” Tldr: he’s great.
Brandon Rahbar: Gallinari says he wouldn’t change anything about the bubble set up. “I’ve been able to travel around the world. I’ve seen bad situations. Our set up is great. There is nothing to complain about.”
Brandon Rahbar: Gallinari on Schroder: “I have a long list of good things about Dennis. He’s a freak of nature. He’s unselfish. He’s the 6th man of the year. He’s one of the best two way players. He’s the only player who full court presses.”
Brandon Rahbar: Billy Donovan: “Chris has played masterful at the end of games.” Also praises Shai, Gallo, Schroder and Adams for their clutch play as well. “Chris’s smarts and experience keeps the team calm.”
Brandon Rahbar: Danilo Gallinari says guys brought video games. But the coolest thing was Steven Adams bringing his guitar. He says he plays too so they’re gonna play together sometime. We need a zoom call with the Steven Gallo jam session.
Erik Horne: Danilo Gallinari on if he considered not playing in Orlando w/ his free agency looming: “Never, not in my mind or my agent’s. The main reason is we’re fighting for something. To do it with my teammates, all the work we put in, I don’t want to see it go to waste.”
Erik Horne: Danilo Gallinari on if he considered not playing in Orlando w/ his free agency looming: “Never, not in my mind or my agent’s. The main reason is we’re fighting for something. To do it with my teammates, all the work we put in, I don’t want to see it go to waste.”
I’ve been told that getting a big man who can shoot is one of the things the Knicks hope to do in the offseason. I don’t know if that means they are only looking for that player in free agency, or if they would look to draft a shooting big with one of their three draft picks. I believe they want to improve their spacing and have heard the two players you named above mentioned – RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson. My opinion is that Danilo Gallinari will be considered. I haven’t heard anything on Davis Bertans, which doesn’t necessarily mean the Knicks don’t have interest in him. New York would need to offer Bertans a significant contract to pry him in free agency. The Wizards have Bertans’ Bird Rights and can exceed the cap to re-sign him at any amount up to his max salary.
I’ve been told that getting a big man who can shoot is one of the things the Knicks hope to do in the offseason. I don’t know if that means they are only looking for that player in free agency, or if they would look to draft a shooting big with one of their three draft picks. I believe they want to improve their spacing and have heard the two players you named above mentioned – RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson. My opinion is that Danilo Gallinari will be considered. I haven’t heard anything on Davis Bertans, which doesn’t necessarily mean the Knicks don’t have interest in him. New York would need to offer Bertans a significant contract to pry him in free agency. The Wizards have Bertans’ Bird Rights and can exceed the cap to re-sign him at any amount up to his max salary.
These conversations struck a chord for Zuretti, particularly his personal communications with San Antonio Spurs guard Marco Belinelli, New Orleans Pelicans rookie Nicolo Melli and Oklahoma City Thunder wing Danilo Gallinari. They are the NBA’s three active Italian players, and Zuretti too hails from Italy, specifically Rome, where his family members still live. “I’m walking in their shoes,” he said, “so I know how it feels.”
Belinelli, along with his countrymates Gallinari and Melli, sought insight from back home to grasp a better understanding of what was happening. Melli sent a flurry of texts to a friend serving as an emergency responder in his Italian hometown. During breaks between long shifts, the friend texted back grisly details. “It was so bad that their army had to come out and pick up the corpses, the bodies, from the hospital,” Melli said. “And they cannot have a funeral. Family cannot be there. They cannot give the last hug, the last kiss. They cannot see each other in the eyes. “They die alone, suffering.”
If the Knicks decide to look for a forward via free agency who can shoot, Danilo Gallinari, Carmelo Anthony and Christian Wood are potential options. Some members of the Knicks front office were enamored with Wood over the course of the season. Regarding Anthony, prior to free agency last summer, the Knicks strongly considered signing the ex-Knick if they were able to land two other stars. They missed out on the stars in free agency, which took Anthony out of their plans. Rose, the current team president, was Anthony’s agent. The two remain close. Worth pointing out: the Knicks being open to looking for a big who can shoot doesn’t necessarily reflect a desire to move on from Randle.
Liz Mullen: The 1st NBA player to make significant efforts to aid with COVID-19 was OKC Thunder F Danilo Gallinari. He’s from a small town in Northern Italy, so he knew how bad it can get. He helped OKC health care workers buy masks, face shields & testing kits.
Danilo Gallinari harder to keep for OKC?
Oklahoma City – If the Thunder entertain ideas of keeping Danilo Gallinari at a price point in the $20-25 million range, a lower tax line makes it a lot harder. Not impossible, but harder. One presumes they’d like to use their full mid-level on a younger wing and that they also would wish to keep Nerlens Noel; doing all three would push them well into the tax and invoke a punishing repeater penalty.
Appearing as a guest on NBA TV on Wednesday, another former Knick, Greg Anthony, asked Gallinari if he would ever consider putting on a uniform that he has previously worn in his career, strongly alluding to the Knicks. “As a free agent, you want to see all of the options that you got on the table,” Gallinari said. “It’s also the fun part of free agency, too. So I will look at everything. And then I will make a decision.”
Gallinari likes the idea of restarting the season but insists precautions must be taken to prevent players from being infected by the deadly virus, which can also impose lasting debilitating effects. “At the thought of going back and playing, I’m very excited,” Gallinari said. “At the same time, as a player, I want it to be as safe as possible. Everybody knows this virus is no joke. If we do it, we need to do it in a safe environment.”
Gallinari thinks the Thunder can recapture that form quickly and make a strong playoff push if the season returns. “It’s going to be a weird situation,” Gallinari said. “We were on a great run. Of course, two months off is not going to help. But with the chemistry we created, the way we want to play, we already know what we need to do. I think it’s just a matter of a couple of days, or a couple of games, to get back to that.”
A major relief for Gallinari with Italy easing coronavirus restrictions is his mother being able to end a home lockdown. “She was the one that was struggling the most. The mental part was the tough part for her,” he said. “But now the rules are looser and she’s going to be able to see friends and family, so that’s a good thing.”
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Danilo Gallinari is far from optimistic that the season in the NBA will reboot amid the coronavirus crisis. “I have a negative feeling [on the season resumption],” Gallinari said while being interviewed by Italian Rai Sport. “Just thinking about the logistics that would be needed to create such a “bubble” in a place like Disneyworld.”
The Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando was reported by Shams Charania to be among the options considered by the NBA to hold the rest of the regular season plus the playoffs. The city of Las Vegas has also been included in some scenarios. “The only solution is to find ourselves in such a city and play without fans,” Gallinari mentioned.” At the same time, I’d like to do it with safety, with health. So, thinking about the logistics, the rules according to which this could happen… it’s really difficult to find a solution.”
Danilo Gallinari would like to finish his career in Italy
Oklahoma City Thunder forward Danilo Gallinari will be a free agent after this offseason and although he doesn’t know what the future holds for him in the NBA, he wishes to end his career in Italy with Olimpia Milano. In an interview with the Italian radio station Radio 1 Rai, Gallinari mentioned: “It would be great to play a couple of seasons at a high level in the EuroLeague and win with that team. I’d like to finish my career in this way.”
Danilo Gallinari: I’m from Italy. My country had been dealing with COVID-19 issues for more than a month at that point. Sporting events there had come to a stop. I figured maybe something had happened over here, too. But no one was telling us anything, and none of my teammates had any sort of personal experience with what the virus was doing to people like I did. So when they sent us back to the locker room, I don’t think anyone else on our team was thinking what I was thinking. They were just really confused. And the scene was unlike anything I’d ever been a part of. Our arena gets so loud during our games, but while we were walking off the court, it was like you could hear a pin drop. Back in the locker room, it seemed like we were waiting forever to find out what was going on. We were all just sitting around trying to predict what was up. After a minute or so, I spoke up. “Guys,” I said, “my guess is that this is something related to that virus. The coronavirus.”
Danilo Gallinari: As soon as I finished that sentence, a bunch of players started asking me questions. I was in the middle of the locker room just fielding questions from everybody. Guys just wanted to get information. For the most part, I wouldn’t say that anyone was scared. Me, though? I actually … was scared. I knew what was happening back in my country, and I’d had that feeling about what this might be. So I was definitely worried and scared, but mainly I just wanted to get information, too.
Danilo Gallinari: When my friend’s grandma died, the family couldn’t even see her one last time to say goodbye. The hospitals over there, they transport any deceased patients to a quarantined location for burial. But they don’t want anyone getting too close, so they don’t even tell the families where their loved ones are being taken. Can you imagine how hard that must be? Someone you’ve known and loved your entire life is just … gone. Forever. Just like that. And that situation is happening to so many families all over Italy. Once you have a parent or a loved one who is affected by the virus and they end up at the hospital, there’s a real chance that you may never see them again.
All the players said they enjoyed learning more about the classic NBA characters in that series. Obviously, today’s players love watching peak Bryant — now more than ever. Bynum has become something of a curiosity. “People forget how good Bynum was,” Zeller said. “He was a monster.” Caleb Martin said he was surprised at the speed and athleticism of a young Danilo Gallinari, playing almost full time as a wing. “You know of these guys, but you never sit down and actually watch them play a full game,” Cody Martin said.
Danilo Gallinari: Never, never, never give up 🇮🇹 pic.twitter.com/Izvi8EQAQW
Gallinari also won’t soon forget how quickly he and his teammates were ushered back to the home locker room when the game was abruptly called off after Rudy Gobert, Utah’s All-Star center, had been confirmed to have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Gallinari recalled a lengthy wait for details and the uncommon instructions issued to Thunder players: You can shower, but you can’t leave. “We couldn’t really understand what was going on,” Gallinari said in an interview on Sunday. “We were all shocked. Maybe I was a little less shocked than anybody else knowing what’s going in on my country.”
The N.B.A. on Wednesday became the first major professional sports league in North America to suspend operations in response to the coronavirus outbreak, now a pandemic, but Gallinari, as Italy’s pre-eminent basketball export, had been consumed by the crisis for weeks. […] Among those deaths was the grandmother of Filippo Conti, Gallinari’s best friend from their childhood in northern Italy — the country’s hardest-hit region — some 20 miles southeast of Milan. So when Gallinari, 31, spoke by telephone from his Oklahoma City condominium, where he is self-quarantined alongside his fiancée at the direction of team physicians and local health officials, he repeatedly brought the conversation back to Italy. “My family has been quarantined for some weeks now,” he said.
“It was a mistake that we did as Italian citizens, and I put myself in, too, because I’m Italian even if I live in the States,” Gallinari said. “Of course we did a mistake not taking it seriously in Italy and now we are the second- or third-worst country in the world for this virus. Hopefully we’re not going to make the same mistake in the States.”
Gallinari said he had scarcely touched a ball since the N.B.A. was placed on hiatus, restricting himself to exercises he can do in his condo and, of course, checking in constantly with family members. Gallinari’s younger brother, Federico, is a redshirt sophomore on the basketball team at Rochester University, an N.A.I.A. school in Rochester Hills, Mich. Their father, Vittorio, a former professional basketball player in Italy, is frequently in the United States on business and is currently in Denver, where Danilo played for five and a half seasons. The rest of the family, including the brothers’ mother, Marilisa, is in Italy — but travel restrictions prevent her from visiting Danilo’s grandparents roughly 30 minutes away.
“Everybody is trying to find a new routine at home,” Gallinari said of Italian League players. “Basketball is not in their life anymore for now, so when they wake up in the morning, they’re trying to find something to do during the day, and it’s not easy because they have to stay home. They cannot have a regular social life. “It’s something serious. I see in Italy, right now, for the situation to get better, citizens — they have to behave in the right way and follow the lines and the rules that the government came out with. It’s not just a government thing or a hospital thing. It’s more like a team. We have to be a team.”
With their eyes set on 2021 maximum cap space, they are unlikely to offer free-agent targets more than a one-year deal. One player they can target with all their cap space is Danilo Gallinari, whom they pursued in February. $26.5 million is close to the maximum amount Gallinari can receive in a contract extension. If they can’t sign any of their targets, they could operate over the cap to re-sign free agents like Goran Dragic and Jae Crowder and also have the mid-level exception to use.
Erik Horne: Some solid cheers in pregame intros for Chris Paul and Danilo Gallinari. Gallinari because he used to play here. Paul because of the reports that the Knicks are interested in trading for him. Paul typically gets booed on the road.
Erik Horne: Final: Thunder 114-107 over Detroit. Big Gallinari 3-pointer with 21.6 s left the dagger, but Thunder’s defense gave up 43 3-point attempts tonight, 10 more than its season average. SGA 27-2-3 (12-of-15 FGs) Schroder 23-1-9 Paul 16-4-6 Gallinari 19-7-1
Andrew Greif: Doc Rivers tonight called the SGA-Gallo-CP3 Thunder “Clippers Southwest.” “So you do know a little about them,” Rivers said. “They probably know a lot about your stuff. But it’s a lot of fun. They had more fun last time” [in December].
Erik Horne: Danilo Gallinari is listed as out against the Bucks with left ankle soreness. Thunder will be playing plenty of small ball, which they’ve survived with in the second unit, but not to start or close games since Darius Bazley’s injury.
Danilo Gallinari on re-signing with OKC this summer being a possibility: “I hope so. It’s not the time now to talk with the team. But in the summer, it’s going to be interesting for me… Definitely, it could be a great option for me to stay here.”
On remaining with OKC through a touch-and-go trade deadline: “I really wanted to stay to stay here. [It would be] tough to leave such a great atmosphere, great teammates, a group that is winning… I wanted to stay.”
Despite failing to acquire Gallinari at the deadline, Miami remains a potential destination for the Italian sharpshooter in free agency because the Heat created additional cap space by moving Johnson, Justise Winslow and Dion Waiters.
Another team that could be a potential suitor for Gallinari is the New York Knicks with CAA’s Leon Rose expected to take over as team president. After trading Marcus Morris Sr. for Maurice Harkless and draft pick compensation, the Knicks have plenty of cap space to use this summer. Rose and Gallinari’s agent, Michael Tellem of CAA Sports, have worked closely together during their time at the agency.
