SYDNEY (Australia) - Patty Mills has been hailed as one of Australia's finest exports to the NBA, where he has spent the better part of the past 12 years and won a championship with the San Antonio Spurs.

Mills has also received international recognition for his performances with the Boomers, a team he led to the Semi-Finals of the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 in China and this past summer to the bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics.

It was the first-ever podium finish for the Australia men at a World Cup or Olympic Games.

Mills celebrated after helping Australia men's capture a medal at the Olympics for the first time

One of his teammates in Tokyo, Philadelphia 76ers standout Matisse Thybulle, experienced for the first time how Mills got his nickname FIBA Patty.

"FIBA basketball's interesting," Thybulle said on The Old Man & the Three podcast, which is hosted by former player J.J. Redick.

"And some NBA players in FIBA basketball is even more interesting, Patty Mills being a perfect example of that. 

"You see him in FIBA and he's like Steph Curry or small Michael Jordan. He does ev-ery-thing. He's doing it non-stop."

The fourth-leading scorer at the World Cup in 2019 at 22.8 points per game, Mills' Olympic average of 23.3 points trailed only Ricky Rubio (25.5ppg) of Spain and Slovenia's Luka Doncic (23.8ppg) in Tokyo.

 His 6.3 assists per game were third after Doncic (9.5apg) and Czech Tomas Satoransky (8.7apg).

Thybulle had heard about Mills' exploits on the international hardwood but he didn't fully take it onboard until he played with him in Japan.

"Everyone was telling me, and to all the guys on the team, 'You haven't seen FIBA Patty. You don't know,'" Thybulle said, remembering what he'd heard before the Olympics.

"I'm like, 'We're still playing basketball; I've seen him play 82 games as Patty Mills.'"

Now he understands the difference between Patty Mills and FIBA Patty, the guard who puts his country on his back in tough situations and carries it to important wins.

Redick, who had a long 17-year NBA career, says some players in the league do not easily adapt to international basketball but not Mills.

"There are other guys who struggle in FIBA," Redick said. "And there are NBA guys who go to FIBA who are role players (in their NBA teams) and they're absolute studs for their home team. Patty's a great example of that."

FIBA