NBA Trade Grades: Clippers land Danilo Gallinari in 3-team sign-and-trade

Los Angeles Clippers

There are some definite pros and cons to this deal for the Clippers.

On the one hand, Danilo Gallinari is a far better player than people realize. A career 37 percent shooter from three-point range, Gallo has range. He puts forth effort on defense, can slide to the 4 in small-ball lineups and is the kind of prototypical wing player coveted by most teams in today’s position-less NBA.

Last season, Gallinari averaged 18.2 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game on .447/.389/.902 shooting splits. He finishes well around the basket, converts from the free throw line when he’s fouled and alongside Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, finally gives the Clippers the versatile wing player they’ve needed ever since the Lob City era began.

With CP3 gone, the hopes for this team to seriously contend are basically out the window. But that doesn’t mean the Clippers have to go back to the dark ages where they made seven playoff appearances over 41 years before the Chris Paul era.

Blake Griffin as point forward will be a fun experiment, especially since his chemistry with Jordan on the interior has never been a question. J.J. Redick won’t be there to space the floor, but Gallo can effectively fill that role.

There are concerns over how the Clippers will make this work since Gallinari is at his most effective as a small-ball 4, but if Doc Rivers is willing to break out of his comfort zone and play to his roster’s strengths, Los Angeles could become one of the more entertaining teams in the association.

After signing Blake to a five-year, $173 million deal, a contract like this makes sense. Gallo is a damn good player when healthy, he’ll help keep the fan base invested and even with a $65 million price tag, a three-year deal for a 28-year-old certainly isn’t as bad as it could’ve been.

However, this deal also comes with glaring concerns, aside from the blatantly obvious/aggravating/laughably predictable loss of an extra first round draft pick within a week of it being traded to the Clippers in the Chris Paul deal.

Even a late first-rounder would’ve been nice for a team in desperate need of young talent moving forward, but alas, the Clips sent it packing in a deal for a quality small forward that comes about 4-5 years too late.

Gallinari’s injury-proneness won’t set anyone at ease either. Ever since his devastating ACL tear near the end of the 2012-13 NBA season, this Italian hasn’t been much of a Stallion, missing the entire 2013-14 season, 23 games in 2014-15, 29 games in 2015-16 and 19 games this past season.

Over the course of his eight-year NBA career, Gallinari has reached the 70-game threshold just twice, and that’s actually over nine seasons including his 2013-14 campaign where he missed all 82 games. Most players are reaching their primes at age 28, but given Gallo’s injury history, it’s possible his body breaks down before this three-year deal is up.

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Combine that with Blake Griffin’s similar injury woes and this could be a recipe for disaster. The Flyin’ Lion is a top-10 player when healthy, but he’s missed a combined 83 games over the last three seasons, including two season-ending injuries in the playoffs.

At this rate, Clippers fans can only expect 60 games from their Griffin-Gallo duo in a best-case scenario. Their fit is not ideal with Gallinari being best suited to play the 4, and Doc might not be creative enough to figure out workable rotations featuring him, Griffin, Jordan, Patrick Beverley, Austin Rivers, Lou Williams, Sam Dekker, Montrezl Harrell, Luc Mbah a Moute and rookies Jawun Evans and Sindarius Thornwell.

However, all of this is overlooking the undeniable fact that with Paul and Redick gone, the Clippers might have been better off committing to a full-scale rebuild — even at the price of letting Griffin walk. It’s understandable why a franchise with such an daunting past chose to cling to arguably the greatest player in its history, but with that price tag attached, another move was inevitable.

This slightly inflated deal is only for three years, but it clogs up the Clippers’ cap space on a great but not elite wing who usually spends at least 25 percent of his season on this sidelines. Getting Crawford’s contract off the books is great, but it comes at the cost of a first-rounder and all it does is slightly stall Lob City’s fall from grace.

Next: 2017 NBA free agency tracker - Grades for every deal so far

This may be a playoff team in the loaded Western Conference next season, it may not. Either way though, the Los Angeles Clippers’ time as a contender is done, leaving them to try and regroup, knowing their ceiling is an early playoff exit. Gallinari is better than people realize, but that inescapable fate should sound painfully familiar to this fan base.

Grade: C+