One of the more underappreciated players of the last 15 or so years in the NBA was Danilo Gallinari, the scoring power forward who most recently suited up for the Milwaukee Bucks. Gallinari made several stops in his NBA career after being drafted number six overall in 2008, and now, the latest update on his career has been revealed.
“Danilo Gallinari has retired from basketball after 20 professional seasons, including 16 in the NBA. The No. 6 pick in the 2008 draft out of Italy played 777 career NBA regular season games,” reported NBA insider Shams Charania of ESPN on X, formerly Twitter.
Gallinari, a native of Italy, began his NBA career playing for the New York Knicks after they drafted him in 2008. He then had his longest run with the Denver Nuggets during the mid-2010's, before joining the Los Angeles Clippers in 2017.
While with the Clippers, Gallinari was one of the players who helped the team put together a playoff team in the 2018-19 season, taking the eventual Western Conference champion Golden State Warriors to six games in that year's postseason.
Next up, he was traded, along with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a treasure trove of draft picks, to the Oklahoma City Thunder, whom he helped make a surprising playoff appearance in the 2019-20 season, culminating in the NBA bubble.
Gallinari's success would continue from there, as he next joined the Atlanta Hawks and played a major role in their surprise run to the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals.
After that, Gallinari's play would start to taper off, and he most recently played professionally in Puerto Rico, before Tuesday's retirement announcement.
Throughout his career, Gallinari established himself as an elite shotmaker and an early example of what has now turned into a full-fledged positionless basketball movement in the NBA, largely due to his versatility as a power forward.
