Draft Express- Gallinari’s for Real

by Tommy Dee on June 29th, 2008 at 4:04 pm

Luis Fernandez, the European talent evaluator for draftexpress.com, has the following take on Gallinari.

The connection between D’Antoni and Gallinari has been generously voiced: the Knicks coach shared team with Danilo’s father, Vittorio, back in the eighties, when Olimpia Milano dominated Europe (the great Bob McAdoo joined them too).

Now, many can think this is a sentimental pick, or something similar.

Wrong.

Gallinari is for real, an excellent basketball player– talented, skilled and competitive. He’s a good kid, a good teammate and a winner. You know, the kind of assets the Knicks are overloaded with, right?

Besides, looking around the draft reviews, it’s worth mentioning that Danilo’s defense is significantly underrated at this point. He’s not the quickest player around, but he enjoys better lateral quickness than he’s given credit for. This past season, officiating as the team’s go-to anchor, Gallinari didn’t put much emphasis on defense, but the previous campaign he proved capable of staying in front of most wings, even significantly smaller ones than him.

Of course we might end up finding better players picked after the Italian, but he brings very nice value at the sixth spot.
  • ricksthepick

    I saw one stat that puts this “Gallinari Business” (I’m going to attempt to incorporate as many “Godfather” references as possible when talking about Danilo) into perspective is this: While the Knicks were worst in the league in defense last season, they were also 28th in field goal percentage. It’s apparent the team was littered with problems. At least we know Gallinari can shoot which helps fixes one of those issues.