SAN ANTONIO – As he awaited MRI results on Danilo Gallinari’s back yesterday, Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni acknowledged the Italian Stallion’s season could be over.
D’Antoni finally admitted he was concerned the Knicks’ 20-year-old forward could have surgery that would end his rookie year. At the very least, D’Antoni said Gallinari could be on the shelf for a couple of months, if rest is prescribed. There’s been no official timetable as Gallinari’s MRI was being reviewed last night by a battery of doctors.
“Yeah, I’m worried about it at this point,” D’Antoni said when asked about potential surgery. “We’re just going to do what’s best for him. He’s 20 years old. We’d love for him to play in the next two or three weeks, we’d love for him to play in the next two or three months, but he’s got to be 100 percent well. From that point, we’ll see. And I don’t know when that point will be.”
Gallinari, the sixth pick overall in the 2008 draft, suffered a recent setback, his back pain elevating to a point where D’Antoni said Gallinari had trouble putting on his trousers. Gallinari is suffering from a bulging disc and was taken out of the rotation after the second game because he looked overmatched.
As reported in yesterday’s Post, Gallinari did not make the two-game trip to San Antonio and Memphis, staying behind to undergo tests to see if surgery was needed. After injuring his back in mid-July in the first game of the Las Vegas summer league, he endured a three-month layoff and missed virtually all of the preseason.