Danny Boy: The Shots The Shots Are Falling

Who the hell would have thunk it?

Here we are, at the outset of another miserable and embarrassing NBA campaign and we, as Knicks fans, are ready to hold our pity party.  We've lost our first three games, our high-priced center spends his late nights sneaking out to Krispy Kreme to suck down Glazed Crullers like they were White Castle sliders and we're still paying Jared Jeffries $2M more than what the Atlanta Hawks are paying young rebounding machine Al Horford.  We're in our element.

And then Danilo Gallinari has to come along and spoil all that misery.  Add a confusing glimmer of hope in our otherwise sedated haze of loserdom.

Danny Boy has to go and become the top 3-point shooter in the NBA through three games. With his 18 swishes, he has almost as many treys as Ray Allen (last year's number two bomber) and Mo Williams (last year's third-best shooter) combined.

A good friend, and fellow fantasy GM, Dimitri Mack, told me that he knew Gallo would go off this way considering Quentin Richardson's success in D'Antoni's system back in his Phoenix Suns days but I had to admit that I was skeptical.  I was pretty hard on the young shooter for missing a large portion of last season with back injuries but I am happy to be proven wrong when the result is success.  Well, not actual wins...but personal success nonetheless.

Now that the Knicks seem to have their long-range shooting small forward in place, the question becomes "how do you build a winning team around that talent?"  One player does not a strong team make. Hitting long bombs won't stop 5'11 D.J. Augustin from sashaying into the lane and laying the ball up like he's playing against his little brother.  DG's prolific scoring pace won't stop the turnovers and it won't stop the late game collapses.  But hopefully, just maybe, having a 6'10 long range bomber will stretch the floor and allow good things to happen.  For now, I'm taking up a collection so that we can keep Gallo in Doan's Back Pills and Icy Hot until the end of the season. 

Nice going, Gallo.  Somewhere Detlef Schrempf is smiling.

-Lamont Smith