If you see a name on the Nuggets’ roster, he’s available in a trade.
Ty Lawson. Wilson Chandler. Kenneth Faried (after July 1 anyway).
And now you can add Danilo Gallinari to that list, according to Marc Spears of Yahoo Sports.
The Nuggets have made injury plagued but offensively talented forward Danilo Gallinari available for trade, a source told Yahoo Sports.
— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpears) June 25, 2015
This shouldn’t be a surprise. There is nobody on the Denver roster who is safe as the franchise tries to reshape its locker room and its culture under new coach Mike Malone.
Gallinari could be a good pickup, when healthy he is a dangerous scoring big who has three point range, can put the ball on the floor, and plays well in transition. He was the leading scorer for George Karl’s 57-win Nugget team, until he went down with a knee injury late in the season. That was followed by a botched surgery that kept him out the entire 2013-14 campaign.
But by the end of this past season Gallinari was starting to look like his old self — he averaged 19 points a game and shot 39.1 percent from three, plus grabbed almost five rebounds a game.
Gallinari has one season left on his contract at $11.6 million.
He’s not going to come cheaply — the Nuggets are looking to move Lawson and others, but with Gallinari the offer will have to be more substantial. But Denver will at least listen.
