By admin 
Most remember the Paul George trade to L.A. as the one where the Los Angeles Clippers gave up future back-to-back MVP winner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. However, SGA wasn’t the only player that the Clippers surrendered to acquire PG.
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Aside from Gilgeous-Alexander and draft picks, the Clippers also gave away former No.6 pick Danilo Gallinari to the Thunder. But while SGA went on to become one of the best players in the league after getting shipped out of Los Angeles, Gallinari’s career went downhill from there. Seven years later, Gallo has not forgotten that deal.
“He changed the trajectory of my career and put me in a difficult situation by sending me away from Los Angeles,”
Gallo had his best years in a Clippers uniform
Gallinari averaged 16.2 points and 4.8 rebounds per game over six years with the Denver Nuggets when the Clippers offered him a three-year, $64.8 million deal, which he, of course, took. He went on to have the best years of his NBA career in a Clippers uniform, including a career year in 2018-19, in which he posted career-highs of 19.8 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.
However, that summer, the Clippers were courting Kawhi Leonard to join their fold, and Leonard wanted George as his co-star. So L.A. moved heaven and earth to complete a deal with OKC, giving up both SGA and Gallo in the process. Although he still played four more seasons in the NBA after that, Danilo says that was the move that was the beginning of the end.
“My NBA journey didn’t depend on a GM or an owner, like it did with the Knicks or whatever, but specifically on a player. A player who decided the team wasn’t working, who wanted something else,” he added.
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He called himself the biggest ‘what-if’ in NBA history
Getting traded from the Clippers, however, isn’t the only career move that Gallo regrets. Last week, he was also interviewed by HoopsHype, and Danilo wondered how his career would’ve turned out if he hadn’t been traded for Melo and had not suffered an ACL injury when he was traded to Denver.
“I think about it just with friends and family when we sometimes talk about basketball and my career. We think about it, or when I come back to New York, and I talk to my fans or people in New York that still work for the Knicks, we talk about it, but there is a lot of, unfortunately, because of my injuries, there is a lot of what-if in my career. I don’t know, I’m probably the biggest what-if guy in the history of the game, maybe,” he said.
You can’t blame Gallo for being a little salty, though. He was only 22 when the Knicks gave up on him because they wanted Melo. He was 25 when he missed a full season with an ACL injury. And then, just as when he was getting it all together in L.A., Kawhi wanted PG over him and SGA.
But as he recognized, that’s part of the NBA business. He is right, though; he’s one of the biggest what-ifs in the NBA, but not the biggest. D-Rose, Grant Hill, and Penny are at least three who would beg to differ.
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This story was originally published September 14, 2026 at 10:52 PM.