Graffignana is a rural Italian city about 25 miles south of Milan. It has a population of about 2,500. But less than two decades ago, it was closer to 2,000, and Thunder forward Danilo Gallinari was one of them. “Everybody knows each other,” Gallianari said about his hometown. “It’s in between hills and trees and a lot of land.”
Gallinari’s father, Vittorio, kept the house he grew up in. Father and son grew up on the same farm, surrounded by many of the same family members and neighbors. But from small-town roots, both Vittorio and Danilo followed their basketball careers around the world. As Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni put it, when he played with Vittorio for Olimpia Milano, “He was just coming off the farm in Italy.”
