New York Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni recently gave one of Europe’s finest young players one of the biggest compliments he could ever muster when he tabbed Danilo Gallinari as the ‘best shooter I have ever seen’.

The Knicks are counting on the Italian to have a major role on their team this season, and he could well be in the starting lineup when they open the campaign at Miami on October 28.

Gallinari managed only one series in EuroLeague with Olimpia Milano but that would bring him fine averages of 14.9 points and 4.2 rebounds per game when playing against some of the most experienced players on the continent.

Those performances would be enough to see him named as the league’s Rising Star, and it would also lead to projections of him going as high as fourth in the NBA draft.

He eventually fell to sixth where the Knicks pounced, but his first season in North America was a troubled one, where he was hurt in the Summer League and played sparingly before back surgery ended his season early.

This season is expected to be a big one for the small forward, who only recently turned 21, and he could start ahead of the less offensively-minded Jared Jeffries for the Knicks, if not at the start of the season then fairly early on.

At least this year Gallinari made it through his first day of practice at Skidmore College and he scored nine points in his first pre-season game on Sunday against New Jersey, adding in five rebounds and four assists in 26 minutes.

But Gallinari is not taking anything for granted, as he said after one exacting practice session: “I don’t want to do too much. That would be a mistake mentally When you try to do too much, you make a lot of mistakes.”