FORMER Cleveland Cavaliers’ head coach David Blatt used the journey of Matthew Dellavedova as a source of inspiration for players at the most prestigious international pre-NBA Draft camp earlier this month.
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Maryborough’s Dellavedova this week became just the sixth Australian to win an NBA Championship when the Cavaliers defeated the Golden State Warriors’ 93-89 in Monday’s game seven of the NBA finals, becoming the first team in history to recover from a 3-1 finals deficit.
While Dellavedova – a former Bendigo Brave junior – is now an NBA champion, his path to the Cleveland Cavaliers was far from smooth sailing after initially being overlooked at the 2013 NBA Draft following a standout college career at Saint Mary’s.
Later in 2013 Dellavedova earned a spot on the Cavaliers’ roster with a non-guaranteed contact after impressing with the club’s Summer League team and played the 2013-14 NBA season, before again having to prove himself when Blatt took over as coach the following season.
“I’m going to tell you a story about commitment. I come to Cleveland and I got this non-drafted free agent kid from Australia,” Blatt told the adidas Eurocamp in Italy.
“He had played a little bit the year before and done okay, but he’s not even guaranteed a spot on the roster.
“He’d come to practice and every single day he’s picking Kyrie Irving up from baseline to baseline from the beginning of training camp… trust me, at the beginning of training camp in the NBA nobody wants anyone pressing on them.
“But old new undrafted free-agent guy has a commitment to make this team and bring something to it.
“That same kid, Matthew Dellavedova, gradually works and works and works and makes his way into the line-up and plays significant minutes and suddenly, everybody on the team loves him because he’s one of those guys everybody wants to play with and nobody wants to play against.
“Then you get all these fools out there saying he’s a dirty player. He’s a what?
Everybody on the team loves him because he’s one of those guys everybody wants to play with and nobody wants to play against.
- David Blatt
“He just plays harder than everybody always and doesn’t stop.
“He comes to practice every day, before and after practice he works, on his off days he’s coming in and getting treatment, he’s getting up shots, he’s working on dribbling just to improve his ball-handling, he’s watching film, he’s talking to coaches.
“His commitment is such that he will take every ounce of energy and every bit of blood that he’s got in his body to succeed.”
