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.
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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.
The worst instance of this was perhaps Paul George, who in 2014 suffered a gruesome compound fracture in his leg during a Team USA scrimmage in Las Vegas. George actually played in six games for the Indiana Pacers the following season (so he’s ahead of Gallinari in that regard), but the George incident had a profound impact on USA Basketball. Since, NBA general managers, and player agents, have been hesitant to make their players/clients available to Team USA for anything other than the Olympics, and then behind that, the World Cup. Any qualifier or other FIBA event is essentially out of the question for American NBA pros.
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The same is not true for most foreign NBA players. They play for their countries nearly every summer. Nikola Jokić (Serbia) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece) played in the same tournament in which Gallinari was injured.
NBA stars who are French, Australian, Argentinian, Spanish, Brazilian and lately even Canadian play for their countries when possible.
The Italians have been competitive in international play lately with Gallinari as an anchor. They won a 2020 qualifying tournament to reach the Tokyo Olympics, where they would reach the quarterfinals. They made the quarterfinals last summer at the tournament where Gallinari was injured. And back in 2004, before Gallinari’s time, the Italians were silver medalists at the Athens Olympics.
The Italians have a favorable bracket in pool play at the 2023 World Cup, with host country Philippines, the Dominican Republic and Angola in their group. They could reach the quarterfinals without having to face powers like the U.S., France or Spain.
“I think we have a good team,” Gallinari said. “USA is still the best; they have the best chance to win the Olympics and the World Cup. But I think we have a pretty good team. We’ve been doing pretty well in international competition, especially these last few years, and hopefully we can get a medal.”
Gallinari said the fact that he suffered his injury while playing for Italy would not make him apprehensive to do it again, though nearing age 35 means his time in the NBA is growing short. He said, “I don’t know if it’s going to happen this summer,” and suggested he would need the Celtics’ blessing to suit up for the Italians.
In 2019 the Celtics sent four players to the World Cup with Team USA (Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart, Kemba Walker), and Tatum played in the Tokyo Olympics.
On the line at the World Cup is an automatic bid into the 2024 Olympics in Paris — where the very best American pros are expected to play for the U.S. in a tournament French captain Nicolas Batum once said could be the best of all time.
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“I think every summer, every competition is as important for me to play with the national team,” Gallinari said. “Now, of course playing in Paris is the dream. It’s a dream for all of us. For everybody. So you see if you can qualify through the World Cup, and then there is maybe like the pre-Olympics tournament, the springboard to qualify. If we can make the Olympics for Paris, it would be so amazing. I am looking forward to it.”
(Photo of Danilo Gallinari: Giuseppe Cottini / Getty Images)
