The talent possessed by Italian swingman Danilo Gallinari has never been questioned, but multiple bouts with injuries and instability have prohibited the Denver Nuggets forward from succeeding as much as was projected of him. Now healthy and the number one threat for the Nuggets, Gallinari is beginning to shine.
When Danilo Gallinari plays basketball, the results are usually pretty good. Besides his rookie season, Gallinari has averaged double figures in points every year of his career, and at least averaged 14 points in six of his eight years.
The biggest problem for Gallinari throughout his career has been actually being able to play basketball. Injuries have affected Gallinari throughout almost his entire career. Over his eight seasons, including 2013-14 when he missed the entire season recovering from an ACL tear, the Italian has only averaged 47 games per season.
If you have played sports on any level, you know an injury that keeps you out for an extended time can disrupt your game once you get back. This inability for Gallinari to put together multiple seasons where he has been relatively healthy has prevented him from fully blossoming as a player.
Finally, Danilo Gallinari has recovered from his harsh history of injuries, and even that is a stretch seeing as he missed six games this season already, but his performance has really gone to another level.
Gallinari is indisputably the number one scorer on this Denver Nuggets team, and that has helped him breakout offensively. This season, he is averaging 18.6 points per game, significantly higher than his 14.5 career average. But recently, Gallinari has been red hot, averaging 25.8 points per game in the last five, and shooting 46 percent from the field. And even though the Nuggets are struggling this season, with a 15-24 record, Gallinari led the Nuggets in scoring as they upset the Golden State Warriors 112-110.
He has seen an increased amount of playing time at the four, with Denver head coach Mike Malone opting to go small, and that has particularly been effective for him.
Gallinari has never been particularly a sharpshooter, shooting 41 percent from the field over his career and 36.7 percent from three. During this five game hot streak, his three-point shooting hasn’t improved, as he is only hitting 36 percent from downtown, but his overall field goal percentage of 46 percent is an impressive increase. The biggest key to that increase has been his increased ability to finish at the rim and from close distance through traffic.
Another key to the Denver Nuggets’ swingman’s increased scoring has been his ability to get to the free-throw line. In January, Gallinari is averaging an absurd 11.0 free throws per game, making 80 percent of them. Against the Warriors, Gallinari was 17-19 from the free throw line, which made up for shooting just 5-14 from the field. His speed and agility are too much for many conventional power forwards to handle, and that has forced them to foul, sending him to the line for a lot of free baskets.
There are already a number of viable candidates for this year’s edition of the Most Improved Player award, with Draymond Green being the frontrunner in my opinion, but if Danilo Gallinari can keep up his current form, and his current health, this bounce-back year could vault him right into the middle of that conversation.
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