Free Agent Profile: Danilo Gallinari
Should the Knicks bring back the cack? Shwinny and Schulman take a looky-loo with a little help from Drew.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some chicken cooking when you got home? Imagine the Rooster came home to hoop? Danilo Gallinari has quietly made a cozy career for himself since being prematurely bounced out of New York. Counting out chickens before they hatch has long been an issue with the revolving front office door. Some (not I) would argue they just did this with Allonzo Trier. The Knicks of course have still not re-signed a rookie since Charlie Ward nearly 25 years ago. Some adult fans of this devil team were not even born when that happened. This despite managing to have a reasonably solid draft record over the past few decades. Gallinari certainly counts in that group. It seems the only thing that has any staying power in New York is impatience.
Perhaps the ability to stick around isn’t all that impressive. Herb Williams stuck around forever, giving the occasional smokey grin while scratching his back against the basket stanchion. Steve Mills seems to keep on hanging on, with a face that always appears to say, “the jig is up, and we both know it”. Once you’re here, are you really always here? Maybe the most awesome feat would instead be to reemerge after a rumspringa in the wild west. Coming back to reclaim the glory of this electric court and it’s hallowed halls. Amar’e Stoudemire proclaiming New York was back turned into the only marginally sustained success the team has had since the year 2000. When Carmelo Anthony returned to the Rotten, he brought Marcus Camby and JR Smith back to the Tri-State with him. Along with some other old souls, it brought the Knicks their much ballyhooed 54-win season and a long overdue playoff berth.
Perhaps the Rooster, il figliol prodigio, would be a perfect player to help reclaim Madison Square West. To figure that out and the underpinnings of what would even make such a move possible I teamed up with my ace, Shwinnypooh. Then we got some graphic helpers from the kid, big Drew Steele.
Jon Schulman: Without knowing if Gallinari desires a return to the Mecca, nor Leon Rose’s potential interest in bringing him on board, it’s pretty easy to see how he might fit in with last season’s roster. Some of the best moments of the 2019-20 season were brought to us by Marcus Morris’ tone setting bravado.
Both combo forwards had fairly similar counting stats last year. This was a surprising leap up for Morris though. Danilo has been steadily producing just under 20 points a game for the better part of the last five years. Morris barely cracked 14 twice, then took this giant step forward (only to be traded and take a similarly dramatic leap back). Both took the most threes of their career and shot over 40% but Gallinari has been there before, whereas this was Morris’ first time. To his credit, Marcus has been a solid and improving shooter his whole career. Morris ain’t exactly no Gallinari though, don’t get it twisted.
The main difference was their roles in the team structure. Morris was tasked with being the tip of a bent up arrow for the Knicks offense, where Gallinari was able to hunt or gather as he saw fit in a playmaker friendly offense with the Thunder. So I wonder, do you think Gallo would expand on what Morris was doing while helping the youngsters grow? Or is he just another power forward and the jokes will be copy/pasted with that Italian flair? A copypasta, if I may.
Shwinnypooh: Let’s get this out of the way: Gallinari is a CAA client so I’m positive Leon Rose is salivating over the thought of paying millions of dollars to one of his ex-clients.
I’m right there with him though. Gallinari would be the ideal veteran stretch forward to plug in alongside RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, lotto bro, and potentially Frank Ntilikina and Kevin Knox. The freedom to do whatever he wanted helped Mook get into a comfort zone in a lead option role he’d never had before. It made him the best version of himself, and it helped the Knicks land a first and second round pick for him in trade, but it sucked a lot of the oxygen out of the offense and often ground things to a halt. Gallo is far more adept playing off of others and getting his within the natural flow of things.
Drew: When we think of the best players in the league at getting to the rim and drawing fouls, we think of James Harden, LeBron James, Joel Embiid, and Giannis Antetekoumnpo. Now what if I told you that Danilo Gallinari is equally as elite as those players when it comes to getting to the charity stripe? As you can obviously see with the big, bright orange star in the plot, Gallinari has been as effective as Giannis and better than LeBron. Over a five-year sample (2016–2020), Gallinari has a free throw rate of 0.472, per Basketball Reference before they hid their data behind a paywall. During this same timeframe, Gallinari shot 89.2 percent from the line, translating to 1.78 points per two-shot shooting foul. Talk about efficiency!
He’s a player who has made a career as a wonderfully diverse and capable scorer, but does it on the fringes of the offense rather than as somebody who the action gets funneled through. That’s the type of stretch forward the Knicks require to allow their young guns the on-ball reps they need to further their long-term development.
Is he another power forward? Sure. And will jokes be made about the Knicks? Yes. Should the Knicks care and operate out of fear of avoiding said jokes? No.
Now, there are other stretch forwards on the market, but none as perfect, at least offensively, for what the Knicks need than Gallinari. His blend of shot creation, perimeter shooting, and herky jerky drives to the rim to bait defenders into fouls would grease the wheels for an offense that needs all the help it can get.
Schulman: Do all roads lead to trading Julius Randle? Or just the roads I want to be on?
The answer of course is a resounding and astounding: Y-E-S, yes, yes, yes! He’s a decent enough player, but Bobby Portis is the only defensively impaired, handsomely compensated, big forward the Knicks need to play backup center on this particular team, if you ask me.
According to Basketball-Reference, Gallo spent 98% of his floor time at power forward this past year. The other 2%? Center. That of course is on a team that went hyper small with several three-guard lineups. With a glut of guards that needed to run last year, this seems like something the Knicks should be experimenting with a lot more. They need to get shooters on the floor somehow and the Wayne Ellingtons of the world shouldn’t be pressed into the point guard role to make this change happen. Likewise, Kevin Knox should never be jammed in at the two. If they’re around, they should play up. Have Portis and Randle spend time as centers (squarely behind Mitchell Robinson on the depth chart). Gallinari would be an excellent Amerigo Vespucci at the four to help the youngsters like Knox navigate their way through the league.
Speaking of young Kevin, who is still only 19 (trust me), that guy needs all the guidance he can get. If the Knicks can’t help but burn the candle from both ends with youth and experience, maybe Danilo and coach Kenny Payne can chart Kevin a path. Check out the season each guy put together as a 20-year old.
Knox might never possess the chutzpah Gallinari has, but that’s fine. Maybe — just maybe — Knox can become Marcus Morris. Check their Per 36 as rookies; when Morris was 22.
Shwinnypooh: I’d love to believe that Kevin Knox can become as proficient of a scoring force as ‘The Rooster’, but he doesn’t move as fluidly, hasn’t shown anywhere near the comfort or ability to create with the ball in his hands, and simply hasn’t demonstrated anywhere near the scoring nous. As far as Mook is concerned, maybe he can get to a similar level of offensive output, but it’s hard to imagine a world where he’s capable of scoring in the bruising style Morris is capable of. Let’s not even get into the defensive improvement that would be required.
Anyways, forget Knox’s potential eventualities as a player. The more important argument is how much playing with somebody like Gallinari could theoretically help his development. There are few in the league with Gallo’s wiliness as far as foul baiting goes to earn trips to the FT line. This is something Knox improved on this year, but he’s still working on an associate’s degree while Gallinari has his pHD and taught in Milan, New York, Denver, Los Angeles, and Oklahoma City.
Less theoretical is simply that playing Knox with Gallinari would open up the floor more for him than any other forward he’s had the chance to play with during his 2 seasons with the Knicks. Noah Vonleh, Mario Hezonja, Julius Randle, Bobby Portis, and Henry Ellenson didn’t exactly provide the same type of spacing.
Drew: Over the past two seasons combined, Gallinari is 12th in catch-and-shoot effective field goal percentage. Look at the company he keeps! This Italian Rooster is literally the perfect four for this Knicks roster. He’s a legitimate floor spacer who can get to the rim and draw fouls on close outs. That’s the type of legitimate spacing you need to help the growth of RJ Barrett, Mitchell Robinson, and Frank Ntilikina. Plus, talk about a perfect player for Kevin Knox to try to emulate.
Playing with a 4 who can legitimately pull a nominal big out of the paint is a luxury Knox hasn’t had, and is the exact type of player he needs to emulate if he wants to have a fruitful NBA career. Signing Gallinari doesn’t mean Knox is going to acquire his powers, but he’ll at least have an example of what he should be striving for when he goes to the gym every day.
Schulman: I’m not interested in piling the pressure to excel on Kevin Knox without providing any actual terms for success, I’ll leave that to his overachieving father. It just seems to me like one of the few times a vet would actually serve the purpose of leadership.
In any case, where do we sign? I need this guy back in New York. Gallinari is a full fledged, unrestricted free agent. If Scott Perry did anything right, it was using short-term overpay contracts that allowed the Knicks to bring on talent without immediately dropping themselves in a hole that they’ll have to dig themselves out of later. So they should logically get better talent and utilize the same stratagem as they try to level up.
Gallinari made nearly $23m last season. He just turned 32 years old. While he’s unlikely to get a multi-year deal for major figures, it seems totally plausible to offer him a one year guarantee and just splash the pot like yea that’s us! There is a path for the Knicks to get to about $42m in cap space pretty easily, based on last year’s numbers. Spread that onto two or three key pieces in free agency, and maybe you’ll actually build up a group that — if they listen close enough — can smell the playoffs.
Drew: Last but not least, here is Danilo Gallinari’s shot chart (via StatMuse.com) over the past two seasons. There is a lot of blue and dark blue on this chart. This is a thing of beauty, honestly. If the Knicks continue to build around RJ Barrett and Mitchell Robinson, they need players that legitimately space the floor. This point cannot be stressed enough.
Shwinnypooh: I think that should be the plan this offseason. Sign a couple of shooters — one being a wing, and another a stretch forward like Gallinari — on big one-year deals. Marcus Morris type deals, essentially. We know that was one of the most productive forays into free agency the Knicks have had in recent memory. Gallinari would provide a greater on-court impact, with the potential to provide a similar yield in trade before the deadline next season.
Given the lack of free cap space floating around the league, even more than initially expected given the likely pandemic induced cap crunch, the Knicks could very well operate as one of the few conduits that can get Gallinari a nice payday. It’s hard to speak with certainty given the lack of clarity on where the cap will be set, but a slight bump on the $15m Morris got last summer seems like a potential sweet spot. It should definitely be one the Knicks are comfortable getting to if it means a reunion with “The Rooster.”
Schulman: By the power vested in my interest… let us go with the godly, gnarly one.
