Bogut: Why ‘Delly’ deserved Olympic spot

Matthew Dellavedova is a proud player. Being dropped from that World Cup Squad in 2023 would have been a bitter blow.

But he didn’t sook. He didn’t complain. Dellavedova put his head down and did what he’s done his whole career ... got back to the grind and proved why he should win back his spot.

He did it at Melbourne United, where he went agonisingly close to dragging his team over the line in the Championship Series. And more recently, he did it during the Boomers’ training camp.

It’s been a constant in his career; giving absolutely everything for his opportunity.

“People will look at it and go ‘how did Delly make it?’, ‘how did he get back in?’ … his squad didn’t lose a practice,” Australian basketball champion Andrew Bogut explained on The Gold Standard podcast.

“The team that he was on, over the three or four days (of the camp), even before I arrived they said that his team was winning 90 per cent of the drills and five-on-fives and all the stuff they were doing.”

“That guy did everything he could to make it. He carried us (Melbourne United) through a Finals campaign last year and just to see him back in the lineup is hats off to him,” recently retired star Brad Newley added.

“What a warrior.”

>> Hear all the fallout from the Boomers’ squad selection, with analysis from former national team champions Andrew Bogut and Brad Newley. Listen to Gold Standard below.

Bogut said Dellavedova would stop at nothing to help his team, happy to sacrifice his own minutes for the sake of success.

But when he does hit the court, it’s at a rate of knots.

“He’s a guy that if you have him as a 12 or an 11 and he hasn’t played two straight games, and he’s got DNP’s … if you put him in that third game for a three-minute spurt because someone got in foul trouble, he’s going to go bat out of hell. I think that’s what they (the coaches) wanted,” Bogut added.

“I can see how Delly definitely deserved to make the team. All reports were he was locked in from round one and that energy’s infectious.

“He’s talking, he’s vocal and he’s a guy that you don’t have to worry about as a coach, that he’s going to complain and mope that he’s not getting minutes two games into a campaign and perhaps not play that well … he’s going to be locked in every game, whether he’s a DNP or playing minutes.”

Dellavedova is set to play in his fourth Olympics when the Boomers travel to Paris in a fortnight.

“The guy’s in his 30s and sacrificed a lot and moved his family around and here is going to his fourth Olympics,” Newley continued.

“I’m so proud to see him out there.”

“It’s well deserved for Delly,” Bogut added.

Australia will play against Team USA and Serbia in Abu Dhabi in the first ever international fixtures in the United Arab Emirates, on July 15 and 16.

The Boomers are then scheduled to play Spain (July 27), Canada (July 30) and Greece (August 2) at the Olympics.