The Rooster Returns: Danilo Gallinari's Shot at the Future

After the unexpected early-season performance of an elongated Latvian rookie, New York City is in the throes of Zinger-Mania. His jersey sails off shelves. Debates over his various nicknames lead to harrowing knife fights on the subway. Shrines with offerings of smoked fish and black bread have been erected outside every bodega from Riverdale to Canarsie. With his towering height, silky perimeter shooting, and condor-like wingspan, Kristaps Porzingis has been deemed the Future.

This feels familiar. Not so long ago, Danilo Gallinari was another young, foreign-born Knick who was supposed to help usher in the next evolution in basketball. Selected with the sixth pick in the 2008 draft, the 6'10" Italian import was a mobile playmaker with range enough to spread the floor and the strength to adequately defend grunts in the post. He was in the ideal system, too, under Mike D'Antoni, the coach whose "seven seconds or less" attack heavily influenced the whipping, three-happy offense the Golden State Warriors are now using to shred the league. Alas, after eight seasons and a move to Denver, Gallinari's dream has been realized elsewhere and by others.

Largely due to circumstances beyond his control, Gallinari has been forgotten. The Nuggets have been buried in an unforgiving Western Conference and are again unlikely to make the postseason; they haven't appeared in the playoffs since 2012-13. Gallinari himself has been tormented by injuries in both knees, and missed the entire 2013-14 season after reconstructive surgery to an ACL. "It's been very hard," Gallinari told VICE Sports. "When you can not do what you love for almost two years, it's the worst. You don't wish that on your worst enemies."

But the Rooster has returned, and has the chance to fulfill the promise that was predicted for him. He was a human fire emoji following last year's All-Star break and tore up FIBA Eurobasket over the summer while playing for his homeland Azzurri. So far this season, Gallinari is averaging 18.2 points a game, supplemented with 6.4 rebounds and 2.5 assists. For several early minutes of Sunday night's game between the Nuggets and the Warriors, he was a vision of modern, positionless basketball: he pump-faked a three before splitting the lane for a two-handed dunk, harassed Stephen Curry above the arc on defense, initiated a fast-break off a rebound, and drew free throws after being double-teamed in the post.

Gallinari can chuck up his fair share of unwise jumpers—he would shoot a putrid 4-16 from the floor on Sunday—but his ugly field goal percentage of 38.7 arguably illustrates the archaic vagueness of that statistic. In fact, Gallinari's high rate of three-pointers and frequent trips to the foul line (where he's shooting 90.9 percent) make him catnip for metrics dweebs, and his True Shooting percentage this season is an efficient 56.3 percent, just a tick beneath his career average. Now healthy and, at age 27, entering his prime, he could rejoin the revolution that seemingly passed him by.

When David Stern announced Gallinari's name during the draft in 2008, jeers cascaded down from the Knicks loyalists assembled in Madison Square Garden. New York was haunted by the flimsy specters of previous draftees Frederic Weis and Maciej Lampe, and another pasty, oversized finesse player from Europe seemed to confirm suspicions that D'Antoni was shifting the franchise's goony identity into a filigreed paean to internationalism.

"Coming from Europe and overseas, maybe they didn't know me that well," Gallinari said. Times haven't totally changed: Knicks fans gave Porzingis a similar dose of volume of low-octave skepticism during last summer's draft. "He's going through the same process," Gallinari said.

Gallinari eventually won the approval of Knicks fans with his feathery shooting stroke and cocksure attitude—in 2009, D'Antoni said he was the best shooter he had ever seen—but the Rooster's tenure in blue and orange was brief. Midway through his third season, he was traded to the Denver Nuggets, along with Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mozgov, Raymond Felton, and draft picks, in the 13-player mega-trade that brought Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups to New York.

"He was a big piece in acquiring Melo," said D'Antoni. "We were rolling. We were one of the youngest teams in the league, in sixth place and moving up. Obviously, a player of Melo's caliber, it's hard to get him."

At the time, 22-year-old Gallinari was averaging 16 points a night for the Knicks, thriving in the type of hyperdrive basketball D'Antoni had pioneered in Phoenix, on a team with a winning record. The trade, he says, took him by surprise. No more celebrity row in the Garden, shrieking tabloids, nights at Avenue, or weekly gnocchi at Via Della Pace in the East Village.

Gallinari adapted to his new surroundings quickly, however, and became a top perimeter threat and an adaptable defender the Nuggets. Under George Karl, a cackling, Dr. Moreau-type tinkerer who experimented with the same small-ball interchangeability that Golden State has mastered, the Nuggets played at a methamphetamine pitch and were nearly invincible in Denver's thin-air altitude. By 2013, a deep Nuggets team looked poised for a run at the title, challenging the conceit that contenders require at least one transcendent superstar. But in April of that season, Gallinari blew out his knee while driving for a layup against the Dallas Mavericks.

"A lot of times, I still think about that," Gallinari said. "We could have been very good. We were expecting to go very far in the playoffs, but unfortunately, we couldn't do it. The injury came at the wrong time. I was like, 'Not right now!'"

Shortly thereafter, the Nuggets were dispatched by the Warriors in the first round of the playoffs. The blows kept coming in the offseason. Despite winning Coach of the Year, George Karl was fired (he is now in Sacramento), and Andre Iguodala, Denver's lockdown wingman, opted out of his contract to sign with Golden State.

Today the Nuggets float along in neutral buoyancy, their 6-9 record indicative of a team that is unexceptional on both sides of the ball. Along with Gallinari and kinetic energy bundle Kenneth Faried, the roster is a mishmash of timeworn veterans (Jameer Nelson, Mike Miller, Randy Foye), raw but athletic guards (Emmanuel Mudiay, Will Barton), and a wonderfully knuckle-headed young center (Jusuf Nurkic, who is still recovering from a partially torn patellar tendon). Denver is neither contending nor rebuilding; it could shift in either direction by packaging young players for an established stud or sloughing off older talent for future assets. So what's Denver's plan, exactly?

"It's not easy to say," said Gallinari. "We had a lot of changes in the last two, three years. We can't really control what they're doing in the office. They have their ideas, for sure, but we, as players, just gotta come in the gym every day and do our best."

Considering the uncertainty in Denver, it's tempting to imagine a healthy Gallinari as a key contributor on a team with more clear-cut ambitions. He signed a two-year extension over the summer, but with 2016-2017 as a player option, it's very possible Gallinari joins Ty Lawson, Arron Afflalo, and Mozgov on the list of Nuggets who were jettisoned over the past year. In a league where it's nearly impossible to have enough perimeter shooters, he would be a formidable Villar Perosa for any team looking to build up its playoff arsenal; offseason trade rumors suggested he could be dealt to the Grizzlies or the Celtics, but the Nuggets stood pat. Come spring, we may finally see the future—Gallinari launching those gorgeous rainbow jumpers as the clock winds down and stakes are highest.