Stepien Rules

Matthew Dellavedova was an undrafted rookie from Saint Mary’s College who was trying to prove he belonged on an NBA roster last summer. Earlier this month, he returned to Las Vegas after logging 1,271 minutes during the regular season as a rookie for the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal told SLAM Magazine recently that Dellavedova was among the three toughest one-on-one defenders in the NBA–along with Iman Shumpert and Tony Allen.

That defensive effort and intensity is what earned the Australian native a spot in the rotation this past season for Cleveland. But he also finished third among all rookies in three-point field goal percentage while appearing in 72 games.

During three summer league starts for Coach David Blatt, Delly has averaged 11.6 points, 4.6 boards and 4.6 assists per night. He’s also helped the young Cavs to a 3-0 record before heading overseas to help his Australian National Team prepare for the FIBA World Championships.

Just before he flew back to Australia, Dellavedova talked with StepienRules.com about the whirlwind summer for his Cavaliers.

StepienRules: After going through your rookie season, what is one of the biggest things you learned about how to prepare for the NBA grind?

Matthew Dellavedova: The thing I probably learned the most is how important it is to take care of your body. That’s one of the things I really learned during my first season in the league. I try to eat healthy and I’m always looking for ways to improve my body in order to give myself a chance to perform my best on the court. Diet plays a big role in that for me. So I enjoy making smoothies, and I’ve enjoyed going to the Westside Market to get all of my fresh fruits and vegetables.

SR: Speaking of the Westside Market, how was your first summer in Cleveland? What other places were you checking out around the city?

MD: I really enjoyed the summer in Cleveland. It was cool to see some of the spots I hadn’t been to before. I went to the Canal Towpath, rode my bike down and took the train back and that was cool. I also went to Whiskey Island to watch some beach volleyball. I went running with some people I train with down at Edgewater Park and after that we went over to watch the sand volleyball. It’s nice over there. I also did a lot of biking around the city as well. It’s been great to get the chance to see all the different things in Cleveland.

SR: You’re out in Vegas now playing for Coach David Blatt. What are some of your initial impressions of him so far?

MD: I’m learning a lot from him already. He’s great to play for. He’s competitive, he really wants to win, and he’s a teacher of the game. He’s direct with his communications but he also delivers his message with a sense of humor. I really like playing for him and it’s been good to be able to get off to a great start winning the first three games out here.

SR: Can you describe the type of athlete that Andrew Wiggins is for the people who haven’t seen him up close yet?

MD: He’s just a really smooth athlete. It looks like he’s gliding up the court when he’s out there and it’s really fun to watch him in full flight when he takes off. He’s been working really hard and he’s impacting the game at the defensive end. He’s obviously got a lot to learn as a rookie, but he works hard, he listens and he’s a good teammate. So he’s got a really bright future and it’s going to be exciting to see where he takes it.

SR: Take me through that blocked shot he had against the 76ers on Monday. You end up grabbing the ball before it went out of bounds, how fast did it seem like all that happened?

MD: Well, I kind of remember when he went up and actually blocked the shot. Like you said, it happened pretty quick. Then the ball came off his hand so fast I thought it was going right out of bounds. He got so much of a piece of it. But when it came off his hand I just chased it down and grabbed it right before it went out. After that I found a teammate who was nearby, he got it back to me, and we were off on the fast break. So with plays like that, he’s obviously a lot of fun to play with.

SR: You and Anthony Bennett entered the league together as rookies. Right now he looks like he’s a lot more confident, lot more healthy–how has he seemed to you from the time you’ve spent with him? 

MD: He is feeling confident. He’s worked really hard and he’s in great shape right now. With how hard he’s been working, it’s really good to see it paying off for him. He’s really been rebounding well and he’s making smart plays too. Like, he noticed a mismatch in the post the other day and he went out and called for the ball. He ended up drawing a defensive three seconds because he recognized that mismatch right away. He’s also been driving and kicking, creating for other people as well. It’s really been good to see how much he’s grown and how much fun he’s having right now. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do this year because he’s really motivated and in really good shape.

SR: I know you guys were in practice when the LeBron news broke last week. What was your phone like when you finally got back to it?

MD: My phone was blowing up [laughs]. Everyone was texting me saying how cool it was that he was coming back. I was getting a lot of people from Australia texting me saying the same thing as well. It was kind of funny, too, we were in shoot-a-round trying to get ready for a game. Then we find out we’re getting the best player in the world on our team. So it took a minute to concentrate on the game. Then everyone was just really motivated to go get the win against Milwaukee later that night. It’s going to be great for the team and the city of Cleveland to have him here. I’m really looking forward to seeing how he works on a daily basis and learning a lot from him.

SR: What have you heard about LeBron from that standpoint—as far as that approach and work ethic off the floor—that you’re looking forward to learning from the most?

MD: I’ve heard lots of stories from people who were here when he was here the first time. They all talk about his work ethic, how he’s a student of the game and how he really watches a lot of game tape. The way he studies other teams around the league and makes sure he knows what other teams are running. From those conversations, and what he’s done throughout his career, you obviously know he’s committed to excellence. He’s going to drive everyone around him to do the same thing. It’s going to be really exciting to play with him and I’m just looking forward to the season.

SR: Dante Exum mentioned you by name on draft night during his ESPN interview after he shook hands with Adam Silver. He talked about how you and others from Australia helped pave the way for him to the NBA. Have you talked with Dante much since he was selected 5th overall by Utah?

MD: I text with him a little bit. He’s a really good kid. He’s smart and works hard so I think he’ll have a great career in the NBA. He’s got amazing tools and he’s going to do really well so I’m excited to watch him. We’ll be playing together in the FIBA World Championships and I’m looking forward to representing Australia with him.

SR: Do you have any specific, personal goals this year? With Jarrett Jack gone, for example, is the backup point guard spot a goal of yours?

MD: Yeah, I mean that’s definitely my goal to be the backup point guard this year. But more than that I just want to improve everyday and do whatever it takes to win. Whatever the team and Coach Blatt need me to do I’ll make sure I do that. But I’m just really looking forward to playing some meaningful games late in the season and competing for the playoffs.

SR: Opening night in Cleveland is going to be incredible—maybe the biggest night in the history of Northeast Ohio sports. Have you thought about taking the court that night at all yet?

MD: I have thought about that a little bit. I was thinking back to opening night last year, actually, and that was incredible. The Cleveland fans are so passionate. Even the final game we played, when the playoffs were out of the question last year, they were there supporting us. There is just so much passion in Cleveland and I can only imagine what it will be like this year.

Photo: Getty Images

The late 1990s version of myself – a short, unathletic, high school point guard of sorts from an Irish-American family – first noticed Chris Herren the basketball star way back in the day at Fresno State. The shamrock he had tattooed on his arm caught my attention; I thought dude was cool.  I might even be in my cubicle today rocking that same ink had I rendered my game tattoo-worthy back then as a kid. But fortunately, as far as that goes, I didn’t.

I did soon find out though that Herren played with an overwhelming passion as an undersized guard on the D-I level.  Big shot taker, big shot maker, could get to the rim, create for others, and was just flat-out fearless on the basketball court.  I began to follow his career some from there.  When he got drafted into the league by Denver with the 33rd pick overall, I was happy for him.  Chalk one up for all the short ballers everywhere who’d ever get – or contemplate getting – tatted up with shamrock ink.  We made it.

I did hear some of what was reported back then in regards to his battle with substance abuse, but it didn’t seem like a big deal to me.  I thought the media was just blowing a couple isolated incidents way out of proportion back then.  Turns out they weren’t though.  Barely scratching the surface in fact.  

I lost track of Chris Herren’s career after his second year in the NBA, just after he played for the Celtics.  I heard he was playing overseas for a while soon after that, and pretty much forgot about him as the years went by.  I first noticed him again though earlier this month, heard he’d written a book.  A book about his life in basketball, and his battle with substance abuse that dragged into the depths of hell for more than a decade.

I read the book, Basketball Junkie by Chris Herren and Bill Reynolds, this past weekend.  I was then fortunate enough to talk with Chris about it earlier this week over at Crossover Chronicles.

An excerpt of my thoughts on the book, and my conversation with Chris, are each are each below:

My thoughts on the book…

Herren describes the darkness inside his dramatic rise to prominence, and gut-wrenchingly details his ultimate collapse.  He then talks about what it took to eventually get up, beat his addiction, and become now a bigger star in life than he ever was on the court.  My words there, not his.  And like I did, you can’t help but end up cheering for the guy now more than ever.  The book is moving, horrific, self-deprecating, sad, and remarkable.  But more than anything else, his road to recovery is nothing sort of inspirational.

To me, this story dares you to believe that it’s never too dark to dream.  It dares everyone.  No matter how far you’ve fallen, you can always get up.  There’s always one more shot you can take.  One more dream to pursue.  One more reason to hope.

An excerpt from my conversation with Chris Herren…

How difficult was thinking back through all of these painful experiences in your mind, and going through the process of actually writing this book?

Chris Herren: The process was exhausting. There were times when I was going through the process of doing the book that I was ready to pull out of it.  It was tiring, it was emotionally and mentally exhausting.  But I got through it, and once I got through it, there was definitely a healing side to it.  It was all out there, I talked about it, and could try to recover and heal from it.

The Cavaliers looked like the Cavaliers of old last night.  No, not the Cavaliers of the past few years, but the Cavaliers of December and January of this season.  They gave no effort, they let the Bucks do what ever they wanted and it showed in a 90-110 loss.  The Alonzo Gee as an NBA starter experiment is not going well.  He has now started the last 5 games, and the Cavaliers have gone 1-4.  Last night Gee had a terrible +/- of -29 in 26 minutes of action.  In other words, on average the Cavaliers lost by more than a point for every minute Gee played.  Not a good performance.

On the other hand Christian Skyenga, who was benched in favor of Gee, was one of two Cavaliers with a positive +/- last night (Boobie Gibson was the other).  Skyenga played 21 minutes and had a +2.  Additionally, he scored 11 points (on 5-8 shooting), had 2 assists and 1 steal.  For the first time in his 28 game NBA career, he was not able to pull down a rebound.

The 11 points moved Skyenga past 3 more former Cavaliers on the team’s All-Time Scoring List:

Reggie (Silk) Williams was the 1987 Big East Player of the Year for Georgetown.  He was also a two time 1st Team All-Big East selection.  He is the 3rd leading scorer (behind only Eric Floyd 2,304 and Patrick Ewing 2,184) in Georgetown history with 2,117 career points.  His great college career did not fully translate into a great NBA career though.

He was the 4th overall pick in the 1987 NBA draft by the Clippers.  He averaged over 10 points per game for the Clippers in 2+ seasons.  He was then part of what many people consider the downfall of the late 80’s/early 90’s Cavaliers, as he was traded with the rights to Danny Ferry to the Cavaliers for Ron Harper, two 1st Round draft picks and a 2nd round draft pick.  He was waived later that season by the Cavaliers after playing 32 games and scoring 6.8 ppg.  Williams later in his career had a very solid 5 year run with the Nuggets, scoring 5,693 points in 367 games (15.5 ppg) from 1990-91 thru 1994-95.  For his career he averaged 12.5 ppg in 599 games and played for 6 different franchises.

Reggie Johnson is the 5th leading scoring in the history of the University of Tennessee.  He was named one of the 20 greatest players in the program’s history.  He was the 15th overall pick in the 1980 NBA draft by the San Antonio Spurs.  He averaged over 10 points per game for the Spurs over a season and a half, before he was traded to the Cavaliers with Ron Brewer for Mike Mitchell and Roger Phegley.  As was the custom of the 1981-82 season, Johnson was then traded a month and a half later to the Kings for Cliff Robinson.  In his two month stint with the Cavaliers, Johnson played 23 games (starting 22) averaged 9.7 points per game and pulled down 5.4 rebounds per game.  Johnson went on to be traded twice more and play 2 more seasons in the NBA.  His career totals were 305 games played, 8.4 points per game and 4.1 rebounds per game for 5 franchises in 4 seasons.

Brian Skinner was a 6′-9″ power forward out of Baylor who was the 22nd pick of the 1998 NBA draft by the Los Angeles Clippers.  He played three unproductive years for the Clippers at the start of his career.  Then he had a very busy offseason in 2001.  He was traded three times in a four month period in some pretty significant trades.  On draft day, he was traded by the Clippers with draft pick Tyson Chandler to the Bulls for Elton Brand.  A month later, the Bulls then traded Skinner to the Raptors for Charles Oakley.  Then just prior to the beginning of the season, he was part of a three team trade in which he was sent to the Cavaliers along with Ricky Davis.  In that trade, the Heat got Chris Gatling and the Raptors got Don MacLean and some cash.  Skinnner played one season for the Cavaliers as a back-up, playing 17.0 minutes per game and scoring 3.4 points per game.  Over the remaining years of his career he was traded 3 more times, including a 4 team 9 player trade in 2006.  Skinner was on the Bucks earlier this year, but was waived on January 5th, 2011 and is now playing in Italy.

By passing Skinner, Skyenga moves into 3rd place in Cavaliers scoring among players who wore the #8.   The Cavaliers now have until Sunday to catch their breath and get healthy.  Skyenga will surely keep up his movement towards the top of the Cavalier Scoring List, so stay tuned to StepienRules.com for further Skyenga updates!

It’s getting harder and harder to not actually believe that JJ Hickson has in fact turned the corner.  Officially.  Like, turned it for sure to stay and only become better and more consistent from here.  He’s been pretty good lately, and while it remains to be seen how close he’ll end up getting to becoming an All-Star caliber player next season, there’s definitely good reason to be encouraged at the moment.  ESPN’s John Hollinger, for one, expects the progress to continue.

In naming his All-2012 Break-Out Team, Hollinger made note of JJ’s recent development, and he also shouted out our boy Skyenga too.

First what Hollinger said about JJ:

J.J. Hickson, Cavaliers
Probably the most encouraging development in a mostly lost season in Cleveland has been the turnaround by Hickson over the past two months. Early in the year, he was barely playable as a low-efficiency robot in the post and an indifferent rebounder at best. Since New Year’s Day, however, a new, more energetic Hickson has emerged.

He has pulled down more than four offensive boards a game since the start of the year, with salutary effects on his free throw opportunities and shooting percentage. Overall, he’s averaging double-figure rebounds in that stretch. While he’s still likely better off in the long term as a 4, rather than as an undersized 5, he is only 22 and has shown Cleveland’s earlier faith in him was not misplaced.

Then his take on Skyenga…who he also called Skyenga too by the way:

Christian Eyenga, Cavaliers
This is more a subjective call than a stats-based one, but “Skyenga” can fly and needs to only add experience to become, at the very least, a quality defensive player. He didn’t see any game action until January but has taken over the starting small forward role.

While his offensive game is a work in progress, his quickness and elevation defensively put him in stark contrast to most of his teammates. Eyenga’s dunks get the attention right now, but it’s his defensive potential that bodes best for his future.

Agree, agree, and agree on the Skyenga points.  Specifically though, he is right to point out the defensive potential.  In addition to those points made, Skyenga has also shown the desire to go up and challenge the best in the game.  Whether it’s Kobe, Melo, or whoever, it’s just like Eminem says in that one song, he’s not afraid.

The other players named to Hollinger’s break-out list include the following:  Tyler Hansbrough, Pacers; Paul George, Pacers; Chase Budinger, Rockets; Gerald Henderson, Bobcats; Marcus Thornton, Kings; Toney Douglas, Knicks; Austin Daye, Pistons; Rodrigue Beaubois, Mavericks

For the full article up at ESPN, go here.

With the Cavs – Celtics 7-game second round series tipping off this Saturday night, I’ve posted below – in no particular order – my top -7 reasons I hate the Celtics…

Dirty Players, Dirty Team:  I can agree with Joakim Noah on two things.  It is true that Cleveland does not get all that many vacationers, and its also true that Kevin Garnett is a dirty player.  And I’ll take Noah’s comment one step further, the whole team’s dirty…just ask Ray Allen.  Don’t be at all shocked when the game plan includes collective shots at LeBron’s funny bone elbow on Saturday.

Paul Pierce:  Lotta reasons here, I’ll just name a few.  His team was awful before his GM went out and traded for two superstars, and now all of the sudden he is allegedly one of the greatest Celtics ever…huh.  This is after he quit on seasons, and led teams towards finishes in the Draft Lottery.  You can give LeBron the 11 worst players in the NBA and he’ll finish outside the lottery, guaranteed.  Besides that, all that crying during the ring ceremony was pathetic, and so was this whole mess, Willis…

more after the jump…

Eddie House:  Look I know he was traded this season for a guy who’s most known for consistently winning a contest that nobody wants to take part in year after year, but you – Celtics – did choose to associate yourselves with a guy like this for as long as you did.  And people don’t forget that stuff.  Biggest clown in the Association…shouts out to Rafer Alston – what’s up Skip!

Rajon Rondo:  The impressionable young PG has been influenced by Mr. Anything is Possible, and displays streaks of shadiness in his game on the regular.  But more than that, it’s really not necessary to where your headband upside down Rondo.  Kris Kross thinks this fad won’t catch on…put Jerry West back up on his feet, and go ahead and shoot that open three…because the Cavs will be giving it to you all series long.

Kevin Garnett the Celtic:  What happened to you KG?  I used to think you were cool 10 years ago.  Well, I know what happened.  You’re getting crushed in your battle with father time, you’ve lost a step – or six – and you know it, and you’re compensating by morphing into that step on his toes, jersey grabbing, cheap shot dropping, old man in the 20 something rec-leage that’s out there still trying to prove his J-V coach wrong 30 years ago for cutting him, as a junior.  And part of me almost gets all that Kev…but why do you have to be so angry about it all the time?

Glenn Big Baby Davis:  We didn’t forget about all that crying you did on the sidelines last year, Baby.  Nor did we forget that bout of hilarity about kiddie rides at Disney Land, or that whole taking your shirt off at the victory parade move.  C’mon Glenn.  Oh, and you also sent Shaq to the shelf for thirty some games this season on a move that could serve to illustrate my first point…but I won’t get into to all that, Baby.  Just promise to not cry this series…its awkward for everybody.

You traded us Jiri Welsh:  Thanks for that.  You knew we had a general manager at the time who was willing to draft guys like Trajan Langdon and Luke Jackson in the lottery and you took advantage of him.  You felt it not only necessary to start Jiri Welsh for 44 games that season to make him look legit, but you then convinced Jim Paxson to trade his 2007 first round pick for him…I hope Jim’s brother John does you like he did Del Negro for that theivery.

I’m sure by Monday I’ll have seven more but that’s all for now.  And make no mistake, starting Saturday, this will be a battle war hotly contested series