“In her volleyball team, she was always trying to put the nets on the court when I was still practicing my shooting,” he says. “So, you know, she’d kick me off the court and we kind of started dating like that.”

Dellavedova graduated with a psychology degree in 2013. In 2017, he married Anna in what he describes as a “destination wedding” in Milwaukee.

Bertie’s menu is scrawled in black felt tip on a large sheet of paper that hangs on giant paper clips next to the butcher’s back door. There are three smoked meat mains to choose from, or a pulled lamb brioche with mint yoghurt.

I order pulled pork and the 190 cm basketball professional chooses beef brisket, with two sides: organic vegetables and salad. He orders a second long black coffee. I ask for a Coke.

“Don’t do that,” Jason replies. “We’ve got organic cola, like a hipster cola if you want.” Hipster cola it is, but maybe I should have stuck with Coke.

As we wait for the food and drinks, we talk basketball. Dellavedova played for Australia at the London 2012 Olympics, age 21, where the team lost in the quarter-finals to the USA. The following year, however, his dreams of a professional basketball contract were on the line in the NBA Draft, where the 30 NBA teams choose mainly college players, starting with the teams that finished lowest in the previous season.

Getting selected can be life changing. But for Dellavedova, despite dominating in his college years, there would be no pick in the June 2013 draft. The feeling of rejection was tough to take, he says.

“So, I had to work my way through Summer League and go to training camp and just back myself to make it. I had to fight for a spot.”

The focus and determination paid off. By September, the Cleveland Cavaliers had offered the point guard a starting contract of close to $US500,000 a season.

In 2014, things got even more real when the Ohio team that had never won an NBA championship announced the return of superstar LeBron James from the Miami Heat, on an annual salary of more than $US21 million.

“That’s kind of when everything changed for the Cavs,” he says.

James, who stands at 206cm and goes by the nickname “King James”, soon galvanised his home-town team of Cleveland, and Dellavedova, to reach new heights.

“I remember the first time he came into training camp he got all the players into the video room and went through each player, their strengths, and what they can bring to the team to help us win a championship, and I was just kind of surprised. I was surprised he knew my name, my game, and what I could do, and that was pretty cool,” Dellavedova says.

Cleveland, which hadn’t made the top 10 in the previous four seasons, reached the best-of-seven NBA finals in the 2014-2015 season. Dellavedova played all six games against the Golden State Warriors, the star-studded team hailing from San Francisco led by sharp shooter Steph Curry. “I was trying to mark Steph Curry; a tough job. We went up 2-1, but then we lost 4-2,” he says.

In the 2015-16 season, he says James drove the team into another finals. The opponent was Golden State, again. This time the Warriors raced to a 3-1 series lead and were favourites to win the title once more.

At that point, Dellavedova says, he just went out and played. He didn’t really think about the occasion, or how far he’d come from Maryborough.

“I was so focused on the job I had to do, I wasn’t thinking about much else, just focusing on watching game tapes, trying to recover, getting my body right, and the game plan to do what I could to help the team win.”

Cleveland went on to win three games in a row and snatched the title 4-3. In the process they become the first team to come back from 3-1 down to win an NBA championship.

“It was not until I looked back and thought, ‘Yeah it was a big deal’,” he grins. “It was an amazing experience and it was really cool to have my family there watching all the games.

“And it was kind of weird, like when I was on the court and they came down before the trophy presentation; you kind of see your whole career or life before you like a movie reel, all the things that went into getting to that moment because they’ve supported me the whole way, and I’m just from Maryborough.

“So, it was pretty cool to celebrate on the court afterwards with them and then in the locker room.”

It was Cleveland’s drought-breaking title and the tough Australian’s popularity was on show during the hometown victory parade. When the crowd began chanting “Delly”, James said, “He deserves that.

“If there was a bear right here and there was Delly right here and I shot the ball and I was wondering who would get to the ball first, Delly would tear that damn bear up,” James told the crowd.

By that time Dellavedova knew he would be leaving the Cavaliers and moving to the Milwaukee Bucks on a four-year deal. This time, however, the deal was worth almost $US10 million a year.

Bitcoin fan

Dellavedova is now playing for Melbourne United after his spell in Milwaukee – “great people, but cold like Cleveland” – a return to Cleveland and a season with the Sacramento Kings. He was recently cut from the Boomers World Cup squad, but has used the time to build his fitness.

He dispatches the beef brisket and veg, while I wonder how he came to love bitcoin and take a job as a vice president for business development at US bitcoin platform Swan Bitcoin.

Like millions of Americans, he says he started to trade stocks and options on the Robinhood smartphone app mainly to fight boredom during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The Cleveland team had caught the trading bug and even had a group message chat, where they boasted about winning trades or teased each other over losers.

Dellavedova tells me he successfully used options contracts to bet on the sharemarket rising from its COVID-19 lows, but then he made a mistake. He thought the market had topped out and bet on it falling, but it kept rising and he gave back significant paper gains to close out the positions and break even.

“I realised the market was going to keep going up as the government was just printing money,” he says. “So, it’s more important to be smart about where you allocate your money. The most important thing about bitcoin is its fixed supply of 21 million. You can’t print food, you can’t print energy, but the US government is printing money to fund its fiscal deficit and pay $US1.6 trillion interest on its debt and prices are going up.

“So, yeah, I see bitcoin as a store of value and hedge against inflation. I own property and looked at gold – I mean, [goldfield] Sovereign Hill Ballarat was 50 minutes away from where I grew up – but bitcoin is superior.”

He won’t say exactly how many bitcoin he owns, but admits it’s “significantly more” than his financial advisers and dad think is sensible.

He even wants to meet Australian superannuation funds to advocate for bitcoin as an asset class in diversified investment portfolios.

Personally, I’m still nervous about paying the bill in bitcoin and sense Jason behind me, shuttling among the tables, in his backyard idyll. Fortunately, Delly has a plan.

To pay the bill, Dellavedova tells me to download the Wallet of Satoshi app on my iPhone. Done. Next he uses his iPhone to photograph a QR code in the app on my phone and sends me 197,031 Satoshis (there are 100 million Satoshis to a single Bitcoin), worth $80 that day, via the Lightning Network that sends instant blockchain transfers.

“The fees are probably cheaper on the Lightning network, too,” he says. “I think that would’ve been a couple of Sats [Satoshis] for the fees. It would’ve been a fraction of a cent to do that versus 0.8 per cent or 1 per cent for a card.”

Jason then uses his smartphone to digitally send me the bill of 149,250 Satoshis, which is equal to $61.

A QR code scan later and I’ve paid the bill in bitcoin. Entirely online, with the wealth transfers between Dellavedova, myself, and Jason never touching a bank account.

“See I told you, no need to worry,” Dellavedova says. And, with that, I’m left to ponder the future of money.

The bill

Little Bertie’s BBQ Cafe, 218 Swan St, Cremorne, Vic

Beef brisket with vegetables and salad, $23.50

Pulled pork with vegetables and salad, $23.50

2 long black coffees, $8

Organic cola, $6

Total: $61 (149,250 Satoshis)