Player to Watch: Danilo Gallinari

FanHouse previews a player to watch from each NBA team in advance of the 2009-10 season.

Recently, Mavericks analyst Wayne Winston celebrated the greatness of Danilo Gallinari in a conversation with TrueHoop's Henry Abbott. Winston noted that as a rookie The Rooster topped the league in effective field goal percentage. Actually, Gallinari finished 18th among players who saw at least as many minutes as he did, which is still impressive though obviously not unprecedented.

Gallinari's shooting was simply dead-eye with the Knicks last season. The Rooster shot a remarkable 58.3% (effective FG%) on jumpers, according to 82games.com. That is just unnaturally good. I mean, really really outstanding.

It's almost as if it could be ... too good to be true?

Was Gallo shooting over his head last season? We won't know until a good chunk into this season, and even then Gallinari's true shooting ability will be hard to figure. But we do know these things:

* Gallinari's jumper conversion rate, while shockingly good, isn't unprecedented. Ray Allen shot 56% on jumpers last season. Eddie House had an eFG% of 57.7% on jumpers. Jameer Nelson put up 58.2%. It's not common but it happens. (This is good news for Gallo fans, by the way. I'd be quicker to dismiss it were Gallinari shooting something truly ridiculous. This is, at least, within the grasp of reality.)

* Gallinari played very little, and took a fairly low amount of field goals. Here's a partial list of players who took more FGAs than Gallo last season: Renaldo Balkman, Travis Diener, Francisco Elson, DeSagana Diop, DeAndre Jordan, Brian Cardinal, Rob Kurz, Malik Rose, Juwan Howard, Brevin Knight (!). Remember Cuttino Mobley? He was traded by the Clippers to the Knicks in November, but retired due to a heart condition before suiting up once for New York. Again: he retired in November of last season. He took more shots than Gallinari last season. So, um, we are clear that Gallinari has a really small sample size to work from, yes?

* In his limited minutes on the court, Gallinari had a tremendously positive impact on the Knicks. He played a shade more than 400 minutes as a rookie. In those minutes, the Knicks outscored opponents 939-889. In all the minutes of Knicks play in which Gallinari was on the bench, the Knicks were outscored 7378-7606. To put that in more digestible terms, the Knicks with Gallinari outscored opponents by about six points per 100 possessions. Without Gallinari, the Knicks were outscored by roughly three points per 100 possessions. That's a nine-point swing. That's likely overstated -- only the Pantheon players make that huge an impact -- but, again, still impressive, even in limited minutes.

* Gallinari will have every opportunity to succeed. The Knicks future basically boils down to two players: Danilo Gallinari and Major Free Agent Acquisition To-Be-Named-Later. Guys like Wilson Chandler and Jordan Hill -- and maybe even David Lee -- will have roles on the next good Knicks team. But the timeline for that team's arrival and the heights to which that Knicks team can go rests on Gallinari's development and the acquisition talents of the Donnie Walsh front office. The Knicks seem to be aware that Gallinari is the one player who needs to stay and who needs to develop. He'll shoot as much as he wants in Mike D'Antoni's offense. Assuming he's healthy, he'll play huge minutes. He will own either the small forward or shooting guard position for this season and beyond.

Until next July 1, The Rooster is The Franchise. And that's a huge boon for him, given that he needs to prove himself and everyone else that last year was not a fluke.