Post by Admin on May 24, 2023 23:30:45 GMT -5
Danilo Gallinari couldn’t help Celtics, but will he suit up for Italy in FIBA World Cup?
(Photo by Giuseppe Cottini/Getty Images) By Joe Vardon
MIAMI — In a playoff series where one team loses the first three games, like the Boston Celtics have, it’s a stretch to suggest any missing role player would have made a major difference.
And in the case of a player like Danilo Gallinari, who did not play a single game for the Celtics this season due to an injury, it’s even harder to imagine how he might have helped against the Miami Heat or where he would have fit.
Generally speaking, the Celtics signed Gallinari to a two-year, $13.2 million contract last summer to fortify a bench that needed a big man who can score. The 6-foot-10, 34-year-old averaged 11.7 points and shot 38 percent from 3-point range for the Atlanta Hawks last season.
In a series like the Eastern Conference finals, where the first two games were really close and the Heat’s bench has outperformed the Celtics, it would be easy and fair to agree Gallinari may have helped a little, shrug and then get ready for a busy offseason in Boston.
That is the next time Gallinari could realistically play in a game — for the Italian national team at the 2023 FIBA World Cup in the Philippines.
“I think it’s something, just like every year, where I sit down with the team (the Celtics) and see what’s going on,” Gallinari said. “I’m far away from playing in a game. I’ve started doing a little bit of contact but not like game-type of contact.”
Gallinari didn’t play in the NBA this year because, while wearing the blue and white for Team Italy in a FIBA World Cup qualifying game in August, he tore his left ACL on a non-contact play. He underwent surgery and has spent the entire year rehabbing with the Celtics and has gotten to the point where his on-court workouts at shootarounds and practices appear to be physical and strenuous.
Gallinari’s case is rare, but nonetheless a pervasive fear for any NBA general manager who has a player (or several) playing in the summers for national teams: that the player, like Gallo, gets hurt so badly he can’t come to work.
MIAMI — In a playoff series where one team loses the first three games, like the Boston Celtics have, it’s a stretch to suggest any missing role player would have made a major difference.
And in the case of a player like Danilo Gallinari, who did not play a single game for the Celtics this season due to an injury, it’s even harder to imagine how he might have helped against the Miami Heat or where he would have fit.
Generally speaking, the Celtics signed Gallinari to a two-year, $13.2 million contract last summer to fortify a bench that needed a big man who can score. The 6-foot-10, 34-year-old averaged 11.7 points and shot 38 percent from 3-point range for the Atlanta Hawks last season.
In a series like the Eastern Conference finals, where the first two games were really close and the Heat’s bench has outperformed the Celtics, it would be easy and fair to agree Gallinari may have helped a little, shrug and then get ready for a busy offseason in Boston.
That is the next time Gallinari could realistically play in a game — for the Italian national team at the 2023 FIBA World Cup in the Philippines.
“I think it’s something, just like every year, where I sit down with the team (the Celtics) and see what’s going on,” Gallinari said. “I’m far away from playing in a game. I’ve started doing a little bit of contact but not like game-type of contact.”
Gallinari didn’t play in the NBA this year because, while wearing the blue and white for Team Italy in a FIBA World Cup qualifying game in August, he tore his left ACL on a non-contact play. He underwent surgery and has spent the entire year rehabbing with the Celtics and has gotten to the point where his on-court workouts at shootarounds and practices appear to be physical and strenuous.
Gallinari’s case is rare, but nonetheless a pervasive fear for any NBA general manager who has a player (or several) playing in the summers for national teams: that the player, like Gallo, gets hurt so badly he can’t come to work.
