The Hawks are finalizing a deal with unrestricted free agent Danilo Gallinari, the AJC has confirmed.
Gallinari, 32, averaged 18.7 points and 5.2 rebounds with the Thunder last season and shot 40.5% from 3-point range. The Hawks were the worst 3-point shooting team in the league last season (33.3%), and it’s one of the major problems they needed to address heading into 2020-21.
The move greatly bolsters the Hawks’ offense as they aim to go from a 20-47 team to the playoffs the very next season. Gallinari, a forward, also brings significant experience to a young roster. This will be his 13th season in the NBA, and he started 62 games and was a major contributor for a Thunder team that took the Rockets to seven games before falling just short in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. ESPN first reported the three-year, $61.5 million contract.
The Hawks entered free agency with the most salary-cap space in the league (more than $44 million), so they have the spending power to vastly improve the team heading into the coming season. Hawks general manager Travis Schlenk has said his roster construction mindset has shifted from acquiring assets to acquiring talent, though he doesn’t view next season as a “playoffs-or-bust” year, given the Hawks are still rebuilding.
Another area the Hawks need to improve in, team defense, Gallinari likely won’t be much help in, as he’s known primarily as an offensive player. So they may need to pursue more defensive-minded players to ensure they become more competitive on that side of the floor.
But the Hawks absolutely needed to add more shooting to the roster if they wanted to have success, because outside the Hawks’ Core Five players (Trae Young, Kevin Huerter, Cam Reddish, De’Andre Hunter, John Collins), they largely struggled to score last season, particularly when Young went to the bench.
In many ways, this move makes sense, but it’s a little curious in one — the Hawks already have a presumptive starting power forward in Collins, a 20-and-10 guy who shot 40.1% from 3, was more active on defense this past season and is up for a rookie extension. Collins has said he feels he should be in the conversation for a max deal, but has also expressed his desire to get a deal done sooner rather than later so he doesn’t enter a “contract year.”
As of Friday night, the Hawks still hope to get a deal done with Collins, according to a person familiar with the situation.
