Danilo Gallinari is one of the premier stretch bigs in the NBA and has been playing in the league since 2008. He is the definition of a veteran and will hope to be a big part of the success the Boston Celtics end up having this season. He has spent the last 2 seasons with the Atlanta Hawks after having stints with NBA teams like the OKC Thunder, LA Clippers, Denver Nuggets, and the New York Knicks.
The entire European basketball world is consumed by the upcoming 2022 EuroBasket tournament that puts the best European nations against one another. The event is returning after 5 years, last taking place in 2017.
The current international schedule has teams playing not only EuroBasket warmup games, but FIBA has also scheduled FIBA World Cup qualifying games. As a result, Gallinari tore his meniscus in a game against Georgia. He has since announced he will be missing this year’s EuroBasket, where his home country of Italy is one of the hosts.
— DANILO GALLINARI (@gallinari8888) August 28, 2022
“It hurts like hell. Not so much the knee that it gave up in yesterday’s game that we won again thanks to our character. That will take some time — fortunately less than expected — to get back to normal. It damn hurts to give up this national team dream. We wanted to treat ourselves to magical nights. In my own house. In our house.” (translated by EuroHoops).
Gallinari is probably the best player that the Italian team had. He is a veteran of the squad and their most relevant NBA player. They are in a relatively easy group in the first round, so the likes of Nico Mannion will hope they can carry their home nation to a respectable finish in a tournament they will be hosting.
Italy will have to contain the likes of Giannis Antetokounmpo in Greece and Bojan Bogdanovic in Croatia in their group stage games. Gallo will hope to make a recovery towards the start of the season so he can help the defending Eastern Conference Champions make it to the NBA Finals again and, hopefully, leave the Finals series with the Larry O’Brien trophy and their 18th banner.
