Danilo Gallinari is playing despite upcoming free agency, showing Thunder confidence dissimilar to that of Davis Bertans and the Wizards.
One of the most notable names in free agency this year, a stretch-four who drains 3-pointers at high clips, opted out of playing in the Orlando bubble.
Davis Bertans will not play for the Washington Wizards during the NBA resumption.
Meanwhile, Oklahoma City Thunder stretch-four Danilo Gallinari will be playing ahead of his ensuing free agency.
ESPN’s Royce Young, appearing on Brian Windhorst’s Hoop Collective podcast, said this indicates the confidence Thunder players have entering the tournament.
“I think that is a good illustration of where players’ minds are at when it comes to team circumstance going to Orlando,” Young said. “I think Danilo Gallinari feels like his team has a chance to do something. I think Davis Bertans realistically looked at the situation and said ‘Nope. I don’t think that’s worth my time.'”
The Wizards, 24-40 entering the bubble, are 5.5 games behind the Orlando Magic and 6.0 games behind the Brooklyn Nets. Even if they were to go on a run, take advantage of the Nets’ missing pieces and clinch the eighth seed — which is highly unlikely, particularly without star Bradley Beal — they’d be matched against the Milwaukee Bucks in the first round, the best team this regular season, and almost certainly see a quick first-round exit.
Oklahoma City, meanwhile, is firmly in the race for third seed in the Western Conference, 2.5 games behind the Denver Nuggets. There’s confidence that this team is just as good as any in the middle of the pack of the loaded West.
[lawrence-related id=434256]
“I feel like Oklahoma City is the lurking, dangerous team in the West,” Windhorst said.
Young said the Thunder have the same confidence.
“I think Oklahoma City thinks Oklahoma City is a lurking, dangerous team. There’s a lot of confidence. I don’t think that they’re putting themselves on a pedestal with like the Lakers or Clippers but I think that when they look at some of those other teams around them that they feel like that they’re going to Orlando with kind of a clean slate and feel pretty good about themselves,” Young said.
“They feel like they’re going to be able to kind of regather the momentum that they had during the season and that there’s fewer questions about who they’re gonna be, showing up in Orlando. They kind of feel like they kind of have an idea already.”
That’s enough for Gallinari to risk injury, sickness, and simply deem it worth being in this enclosed environment away from home for months.
It also might’ve helped that NBA players union president Chris Paul is the captain of the team, so his confidence in the bubble solution and availability to answer teammates’ questions put the team’s mind at ease.
“Shai Gilgeous-Alexander … talked about how often he talked to Chris and how kind of confident Chris was, and the advantage of being able to go directly to him and get an update,” Young said.
“That certainly had to play an influential role in some of these guys feeling pretty good about it.”
[lawrence-related id=434229,434212]
