Interesting times for Mills, Boomers

MELBOURNE (Paulo Kennedy's View from Downunder) - What a year it has been for Patty Mills.

It started with him breaking through for some regular and productive minutes with Portland in the NBA, scoring in double-figures 10 times and handing out three or more assists on 18 occasions.

Then he helped the Boomers qualify for the Olympics this past international season, debuted in Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL) competition and signed a lucrative deal with Xinjiang in the Chinese Basketball Association (CBA).

Over the New Year period though, things got a lot more interesting.

Mills’ CBA club alleged he was faking a hamstring injury to avoid playing, and are reported to have terminated his contract.

Mills vigorously denies this charge and says he has the MRIs to prove it.

Whatever happened it has certainly got messy and at this stage it is unclear when Australia’s point guard will get to play again.

Mills’ fortunes are closely followed in Australia – not just because he is an exciting young talent who has shown potential to crack the NBA, but because the Boomers’ fortunes at the London Olympics will ride partially on his shoulders.

While Andrew Bogut is Australia’s jewel, he has yet to show he can be a dominant scorer at international level, nor has his start to the NBA season been near his outstanding best.

After him there are plenty of good Aussies plying their trade in Europe or the NBL, but none who really scare defences at international level. That’s where Mills comes in.

At his best he is explosive and must be a focus for opposition sides, with his ability to slice through the slightest opening in transition, bomb from the perimeter or make the defence collapse with his penetration.

That’s at his best, however, and at a young 23 there is still a large gap between that and his lesser performances. For that reason a number of people downunder scratched their heads when he signed in China.

With the lockout in place, Mills had chosen to pass up European offers to play for the Melbourne Tigers, former home of the likes of Andrew Gaze, Mark Bradtke, Chris Anstey and ex-Canadian national team captain Dave Thomas.

Having not run his own club team since his brief and injury-interrupted college career, this choice allowed him to grow into the floor general role without the pressure of playing as an import.

And to be honest, he needed that. Just like his international and NBA career to date, Mills both sparkled and fizzled. Against the bottom three teams he averaged 25 points at 53 per cent; against the top six he struggled for just 13.4 points at 32 per cent.

His leadership made great strides however. Mills recorded just eight assists in his first four games, but with his jumpshot inconsistent he decided to turn playmaker, using the high on-ball screen to near-perfection to average 7.4 assists over his next five games.

This was a great sign for the Boomers. Then, the lucrative offer from Xinjiang appeared and Mills took it. He landed in the CBA and nailed a lazy 28 points on 10-of-13 in 26 minutes straight off the plane.

Mills scored 32 against the then top-of-the-table Beijing and 39 against third-placed Guangsha. While his dominance was great for the fans in Xinjiang, playing mostly against opposition that simply couldn’t guard him probably did little for his development.

So what now that he is released? We will have to wait and see. The CBA seemed quite clear that they wouldn’t be clearing imports before the end of the season, but if Xinjiang has chosen to terminate the contract that could change things.

Hopefully for Mills and Australia’s chances in London, he will be with an NBA team seeing some regular burn before too long, learning off a veteran point guard in the process.

At the very least a return to the Tigers to see out the season against the likes of Damian Martin, Jamar Wilson, Eddie Gill, Cedric Jackson and Adam Gibson would give him the chance to work on his weaknesses in a competitive environment.

After all, Mills has extraordinary talent that has only begun to be tapped, and an unleashing of that at the Olympics will make life a lot easier for the rest of his Boomers teammates, who seemed suffocated by the defence at the 2010 FIBA World Championship.

Paulo Kennedy

FIBA

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