Brandon Jennings: Bronny James is better than Matthew Dellavedova

Bronny James has become a very polarizing figure in the NBA before he has even played his first official game in the league, and it is all because of who his father is and the optics that situation has created.

While some see decent potential in him and have been encouraged by solid performances in his last two summer league games, others feel he’s nothing more than the product of nepotism. Clearly, it will be a while because the basketball world can accurately judge the younger James as a player.

Former NBA player Brandon Jennings said on X (formerly Twitter) that he already feels the younger James is “better than a lot of role players that played on championship teams in the NBA,” and he seemed to challenge others to name players he would take the younger James over (h/t Cavaliers Nation).

Two people mentioned Matthew Delladedova, a role player on the elder James’ Cleveland Cavaliers teams several years ago. Jennings responded by saying the younger James is better than Dellavedova while saying that other members of those Cavaliers teams were “trash.”

The elder James went to war in the 2015 NBA Finals against the Golden State Warriors with a rag-tag group of players after co-stars Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love went down with injuries. Dellavedova, who to that point had been a lackluster young guard in the NBA, had an admirable 20-point effort in Game 3 as Cleveland won to take a 2-1 series lead.

After playing heavy minutes in both Game 2 and Game 3 of the series, the Aussie was so exhausted that he had to be taken to the Cleveland Clinic to be treated for severe cramps.

The elder James tried so hard to lead Cleveland to what would’ve been the city’s first world championship in any major sport since 1964 by averaging 35.8 points, 13.3 rebounds and 8.8 assists a game in the finals. But he shot just 39.8% from the field, and the undermanned Cavs lost in six games.

Of course, he and his team got their revenge just a year later in the championship series when the Cavs overcame a 3-1 series deficit to defeat a Warriors team that had won a record 73 games.