Danilo Gallinari needs the LA Clippers to be fit to face LeBron

JOHANNESBURG -- LA Clippers power forward Danilo Gallinari is looking forward to having a fully fit team come the new NBA season, after he and a number of others saw parts of their season disrupted by doctors' visits and treatment rooms.

The Italian missed the tail end of the campaign with a hand injury, though he looked in fine form at the Basketball without Borders camp in South Africa this week, helping the young ballers with drills, and training with his fellow NBA players.

'Gallo,' who is a member of the Team World that will take on Team Africa in the NBA Africa game on Saturday, told KweséESPN that he will be ready to go come October, and that the Clippers will be much stronger with a full roster available.

He said of the NBA-high 37 starting line-ups for the Clippers: "Last season we didn't have a chance to show everybody what we can do because everybody was injured. I think we played only three games together out of the 82, which is an amazing stat.

"But we were almost able to make the playoffs, so with a healthy team I think we're going to have a lot of fun."

The 6ft10in forward, who participated at Basketball without Borders Europe in 2003, also had thoughts about LeBron James' move from Cleveland to the Lakers, noting that the Los Angeles local 'derby' would have a whole new layer of intrigue.

"It's going to make the LA game [Clippers v Lakers] more interesting, and it's going to make the Western Conference even tougher. It was already tough, but with him coming to LA it's going to be even worse," he noted.

Another Team World player looking ahead to a King James matchup in the west is Nigerian-American Al-Farouq Aminu of the Portland Trailblazers, and he told KweséESPN that he was looking forward to the challenge.

"We didn't end the season how we wanted to and everyone went into the summer with a chip on their shoulders," Aminu said.

"I'm excited about that because that's the edge we're going to need in order to compete in the West, which is going to be very difficult this year.

"In the West there's never a night off," he added.

The NBA Africa game takes place on Saturday at the Sun Arena in Pretoria, with tip-off at 5pm local time (11amET).