MATTHEW Dellavedova’s NBA Summer League campaign is over and he will return to Australia on Friday for a training camp with the Boomers.
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Dellavedova and the Cleveland Cavaliers lost 82-76 to the Miami Heat in the Summer League quarter-finals on the weekend.
The Maryborough raised point guard wasn’t at his best in the loss to the Heat, but he did enough at the tournament to earn praise from Cavs head coach Mike Brown.
“There’s a lot of guys on our roster who I thought deserved invites to our vet camp. (Matthew) Dellavedova I thought played well, Cory Higgins and Jermaine Taylor and Justin Harper played well,” Brown told cleveland.com
“I’m probably missing a few guys, but I thought we had a handful of guys that stepped up and played well throughout the course of the week in games and in practice’’
Dellavedova appears to be in a battle with Cory Higgins for the final guard position on the Cavs roster.
“We have two guys that obviously can play the point guard position pretty good when you talk about Kyrie Irving and Jarrett Jack,” Brown told the Akron Beacon.
“On top of that, we’ll probably need a third guy to be ready just in case. Dellavedova is a good name, Cory Higgins is a good name.”
At this stage Dellavedova will return to Cleveland in September for more workouts and, potentially, an invitation to October’s training camp.
The Cavs start NBA pre-season matches on October 8.
In the meantime he has this weekend’s Boomers training camp in Canberra and next month’s FIBA World Championships qualifying games against New Zealand to focus on.
The Boomers need to defeat the Kiwis in the two-game series to represent Oceania at next year’s world championships in Madrid.
The Opals will also play the New Zealand Tall Ferns in a qualifying series.
The Opals training squad includes Bendigo Spirit
