Danilo Gallinari came back from a torn ACL last season and although it took him a little bit of time to shake all of the rust off he was back to his normal self by the end of the season. The Denver Nuggets rewarded Gallinari with a contract extension worth more than $45 million over the next three seasons and they expect him to be their go-to-guy. New head coach Mike Malone has been very complimentary of Gallinari and said he plans to run his offense through him and let him handle the ball quite a bit, according to Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com.
Gallinari is the Nuggets starting small forward but he is expected to see a lot of time at the power forward position this season. Malone wants to be able to go small quite a bit this year and play fast, something which Gallinari is okay with. Gallinari is used to playing the four but something he hasn't done too much of is handle the ball and facilitate offense but Malone will allow him to do that too.
"He has showcased the ability to play pick-and-roll and handle the ball. He's 6 foot 10 and there is, offensively, not a lot that he can't do. His ability to shoot. He played at a very, very high level to end the year last year. We're going to try and let him use all the strengths he has as a player. I think ball handling and playing pick-and-roll, especially when he's a four, we're going to play small ball at times, I think that puts a lot pressure on opposing defenses," said Malone.
Gallinari is a scorer first and always has been but Malone plans to use him a little differently than he has been used in the past. Typically possessions end with the ball in Gallinari's hands but Malone plans to let him start with the ball. This could have as much to do with the fact that they are starting a rookie point guard in Emmanuel Mudiay but Malone is clearly extremely high on Gallo's offensive game.
For his career Gallinari only averages 1.8 assists per game and his career high for a season is just 2.7 so asking him to be a facilitator will be different for him. From the sounds of it Malone wants him to play a role similar to the one LeBron James plays as somewhat of a point forward. The difference is that LeBron is one of the best passers in the NBA and Gallinari has yet to show he has that ability.
The Nuggets are heavily invested in the 27 year old Italian as their guy so they are seemingly going to let him run the show. They figure since he is their guy they should give him the opportunity to do a lot of different things and we will see how it works out for them.
