Longtime NBA forward Danilo Gallinari announced his retirement from basketball Tuesday morning.
Gallinari, 37, spent 16 years in the NBA, playing in 14 seasons -- and missing two others with torn ACLs -- for several teams, beginning with the New York Knicks, who selected him sixth overall in the 2008 draft.
One of 299 players, per the Elias Sports Bureau, to have played at least 14 NBA seasons, Gallinari also played for the Denver Nuggets, LA Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics (no games logged), Washington Wizards, Detroit Pistons and Milwaukee Bucks.
The son of Vittorio Gallinari -- a teammate and roommate of longtime NBA head coach Mike D'Antoni while the two were members of Olimpia Milano in the 1970s and '80s -- Gallinari is the second-highest-drafted Italian player ever, behind former No. 1 selection Andrea Bargnani, and his 11,607 points is the most of any Italian player in NBA history.
He was best known for his time with the Knicks, where he was the fresh-faced on-court part of their rebuilding project ahead of the star-studded 2010 free agency class while D'Antoni was the head coach, and with the Nuggets, where he arrived as part of the massive trade that brought Carmelo Anthony to New York in 2011.
It was in Denver that Gallinari was part of a 57-win Nuggets team in 2012-13 that was made up of several of the players who came with him as part of that Anthony trade and that appeared ready to make a run in the Western Conference playoffs when Gallinari tore his ACL late in that regular season.
Injuries were, unfortunately, a major storyline of Gallinari's career, as he missed at least 10 games in all but one of his NBA seasons. He not only missed two entire seasons -- 2013-14 and 2022-23 -- to ACL tears but also missed the vast majority of his rookie year with a back injury.
But when he was on the court, Gallinari was a tremendously skilled offensive player -- particularly given that he was 6-foot-10. His 1,456 3-pointers is the sixth most by any player in NBA history who is at least that tall. In February 2021, while playing with the Hawks, he became one of eight players in league history to hit at least 10 3-pointers while coming off the bench.
That season with Atlanta marked the only time Gallinari would make it as far as the NBA's conference finals in his 14-year career, although he capped off his professional career by winning the Puerto Rican league title, and winning the championship series MVP award, with Vaqueros de Bayamon this past summer.
Gallinari's last game in the NBA was Game 6 of the Bucks' first-round loss to the Indiana Pacers in the 2024 NBA playoffs.