Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Again in play, Gallinari asks Riley: ‘Where to next?’
As NBA free agency remains an abstract, with no set starting point as far as timing and no set starting point as to where the 2020-21 salary cap will fall, one candidate previously tied to the Miami Heat has tossed his name into the ring.
In a Twitter post that featured him in the uniforms of the four NBA teams he has played for, Oklahoma City Thunder free-agent forward Danilo Gallinari, in advance of his team’s expected rebuild, offered up: “Where to next?”
Gallinari already could have worn a fifth uniform had February’s trade deadline gone as scripted by Heat President Pat Riley.
The day after the Heat acquired Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill from the Memphis Grizzlies in the deal that sent out Justise Winslow, James Johnson and Dion Waiters, Riley made the rare divulgence there was a Part B to those machinations, one that included a play with the Thunder for Gallinari.
That part of the process was short-circuited when, unlike Iguodala, Gallinari would not accept a Heat extension with only one guaranteed season.
“I like Gallo,” Riley said in February, in an atypical concession of coming up short on the trade market. “And I think he would have fit in here really well. But it didn’t work out. And somewhere you have to sort of draw a line in the sand for your team.”
The Heat went on to advance to the NBA Finals with Crowder, who had been speculated to be rerouted to Oklahoma City in February, as a key rotation component.
The line-in-the-sand reference by Riley was the ability to maximize salary-cap space for the 2021 offseason, when potential free agents could include Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kawhi Leonard, Victor Oladipo, Paul George and LeBron James, among others.
It was a line, Riley said, neither he nor general manager Andy Elisburg, Nick Arison and Micky Arison of the team’s ownership group were willing to cross.
“Am I disappointed?” Riley asked rhetorically at the February trading deadline. “Yes. I wanted everything. But I wasn’t going to, nor was Micky nor was Andy nor was Nick going to compromise.
“A two-year plan, that’s what we’re looking at. It would be this year and then it would be next year.”
Now Gallinari again is about to hit the market, whenever the NBA decides free agency will open, this time in sole control of his future.
Against that backdrop, the 32-year-old outside-shooting big man, in a recent interview with international sports outlet Sportando, when asked if playing for a championship was more important than a contract, said: “Yes, at this time, yes. I’m not 20 anymore.”
Whether that would make him amenable to a one-year contract is another story, if that even were possible for the Heat beyond the $9.8 million midlevel exception.
The only way the Heat could come close to the $22.6 million Gallinari earned this past season would be moving on from Goran Dragic, Crowder and the rest of the team’s impending free agents (Meyers Leonard, Derrick Jones Jr. and Hill among them). A smaller contract for Gallinari could be carved out if Dragic were to return for a small salary decrease and Kelly Olynyk either were to bypass his $13.2 million 2020-21 player option or be rerouted in a trade should he opt in.
Those machinations, however, would come at a cost of Crowder, altering the Heat’s ability to play more of a switching defense across the front line, which proved so effective against the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals.
A sign-and-trade deal involving some of the Heat’s young pieces also could be possible but would require a three-year contract for Gallinari, albeit with only the first season required to be guaranteed.
Worth noting, however, is in that February interview that included the discussion of Gallinari, Riley also noted that Jimmy Butler would be 31 going into 2020-21.
“We will get players, and get what we need in the next year or two,” Riley said. “That’s not going to waste Jimmy Butler’s years, his best years.”