Who was your GOAT growing up? Danilo Gallinari: Michael Jordan. Why is that? DG: Because I guess I grew up in an area where all of us were MJ fans. So it was the guy, and he’s still the guy in my opinion.
Do you ever think about how your career might have differed if you had stayed in New York and the Carmelo Anthony trade never happened? Danilo Gallinari: No, I sometimes talk about it. I think about it just with friends and family when we sometimes talk about basketball and my career. We think about it, or when I come back to New York and I talk to my fans or people in New York that still work for the Knicks, we talk about it, but there is a lot of, unfortunately, because of my injuries, there is a lot of what-if in my career. I don’t know, I’m probably the biggest what-if guy in the history of the game, maybe. But it’s part of an NBA career. It happened to me, unfortunately, more than any other athlete probably, as far as injuries, but I don’t think about it too much. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
When you played alongside Nikola Jokic in Denver, did you sense that he would become a superstar? Danilo Gallinari: Yeah, I knew he was gonna be a great player. I didn’t know he was gonna be a three-time MVP, but I knew he was gonna be a great player, and you could see that the franchise wanted to go in that direction. And it was great to be part of winning teams in Denver, but it was also great to be part of a rebuilding situation. My situation never changed because I was always playing in the starting lineup and being the best player on the team. So nothing changed for me, but it was all great to see these young players develop. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
Who was your GOAT growing up? Danilo Gallinari: Michael Jordan. Why is that? DG: Because I guess I grew up in an area where all of us were MJ fans. So it was the guy, and he’s still the guy in my opinion. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
Who are your current top five players in the league? Danilo Gallinari: Current Top 5, I always, I guess I always go with the old heads first: Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James. And then I put Anthony Edwards and Nikola Jokic. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
Who are your all-time Top 5 players? Danilo Gallinari: I would go with John Stockton; at two, MJ; at three, LeBron James, then Bill Russell, and Jokic. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
What was your reaction to being traded to Oklahoma City in the Paul George deal. Did you see superstar potential in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander early on, similar to what you saw in Jokic? Danilo Gallinari: Yeah, you could see it from Shai too that he was going to be a very, very good player. I was older, so I wasn’t shocked as I was for my first trade. So I took it just as business, you know, going to the other city and just going to play basketball in another city for another team, so I wasn’t as shocked as the New York trade. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
Enjoying this article? Support our work with a small crypto donation.After the Melo trade, did you feel you had to justify being traded for him, and how did you face the challenges in Denver, including the 57-win season, George Karl’s Coach of the Year award, and his subsequent departure? Danilo Gallinari: Yeah, when Masai Ujiri and coach Karl talk about it, they blame it on me because I tore my ACL right before the playoffs that season, and then we lost against Golden State, and we were supposed to go all the way to the Finals, and so after the season, if I don’t get injured, the season goes differently, and coach Karl being the Coach of the Year and Masai being the GM of the Year maybe they have a different path. The Nuggets have a different path, but that’s another huge what-if. But I had a great time in Denver; it was the only team that I played for more than two years. I played there six and a half seasons, so it’s definitely the city and the team that I’m closer to. And so I had a great time in Denver. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
How did your game evolve after the back injury and first ACL tear? How did you reinvent yourself post-knee injury? Danilo Gallinari: Well, I’m fortunate, of course. I was a great athlete before I got all these injuries, but I was very gifted skills-wise, and so my skills helped me hide a little bit of the wear and tear that my injuries gave to my body. And so there is basketball. There are so many things that you can do, especially offensively, to just make sure that you are an effective player without jumping and dunking like LeBron James. I was always that player in Denver, and so it was great to be able to just be free and play for all those years. Unfortunately, I have never experienced probably my prime because I don’t know what my prime could have been. I had back surgery my rookie year, and then I would say my prime was in Denver. When I was in my prime, I had the ACL, so after that, yes, you can come back and still be a very good athlete and player, but I don’t know if you can still experience what your prime could have been without injuries. But I definitely had a great time in Denver. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
From your perspective, was that game where Trae Young sent New York home as wild as everyone makes it seem? Danilo Gallinari: Trae played amazingly. I think that we got to the playoffs with so much confidence that, especially winning the first game in New York, gives you another boost of confidence, and we had the confidence that we could win against everybody. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
Looking back, what was that final season like, playing center for the Wizards and Pistons, joining the Bucks, and being traded multiple times? Danilo Gallinari: It was terrible. That’s not the way that’s not the way that I wish any player to finish their last season, the way that I finished it. I couldn’t control any of it but to play at the five, which I never did and I never will, not even in my dreams. That’s not my position. I never played it, and I will never play it, as I said, not even in my dreams, so it was a very tough situation for me to be not just a player on the court but also being in two rebuilding situations like Washington and Detroit. And then one of the biggest regrets that I have in my career is the choice that I made to go to Milwaukee for one year instead of signing two years with the Clippers, which I don’t know if a lot of people know about. I had the chance to sign two years with the Clippers, and I signed one year with Milwaukee. So it’s probably, when I think about it, the biggest regret; that would probably be the biggest mistake that I made. Any other choice that I did in my career was, I think, great; that choice, contract-wise and team-wise, was probably the biggest mistake. — 9/9/2026 HoopsHype
This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Danilo Gallinari picks Michael Jordan as NBA’s GOAT: He’s still the guy, in my opinion
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