Everyone and their dog knows that Patrick Mills has been released from the Melbourne Tigers to further his career in China. While I can see why he made the move I do think that it was a little scummy of him to go so soon.
For one he didn’t separate himself from the rest of the league enough to validate the pre-season hype. Much like Harry Kewell for the Melbourne Victory who has only one assist and no goals in five games, Mills has failed to live up to his reputation of being unguardable and ‘NBA worthy’. His numbers of 18.6 points and 5.0 assists are in the top level of the NBL but for someone who played in 64 games for the Portland Trailblazers they aren’t that impressive. People expected Patty to put up 30 points a game and would light the world on fire. Starting out he had numerous games of subpar shooting and his first three games he had more turnovers than assists. Luckily for him his play improved with a 32 point game and three games with eight assists or more but he left before the naysayers could be shut up with his play. 42% from the field and 29% from three is just not good enough for any NBA player in the NBL.
However, the main reason why I am a little miffed is that after all this hoopla over Patrick Mills coming down from the NBA to help out his home country and the sport that needs a shot in the arm was extremely anti-climactic. The first game of the season was sold out and there was a buzz in the air that was louder than the last decade of basketball but after two months that buzz has fizzled and Mills has lost his sheen and people are starting to turn. Also, I feel like the Daryl Corletto saga was for nothing and the Tigers organisation will need to try hard to win back loyal fans now they have nothing to show for the jettison of Corletto.
But at the end of the day Patty Mills has to look out for Patty Mills first. He is only 23 years old and if he is getting paid the reported $1.25 million that is very hard to pass up for a low ranking league such like the NBL. On the Xinjiang Guanghui Flying Tigers (which is a killer name by the way) there are notable names like Kenyon Martin and Quincy Douby with the league including players such as Stephon Marbury, Aaron Brooks, Wilson Chandler, Dan Gadzuric, JR Smith and Yi Jianlian. No doubt he will get better exposure and a bigger challenge and combined with the uncertainty of the NBA contract situation where there is no guarantee that Mills will get a contract in the new NBA I can understand why he made this decision.
All is not lost for the Tigers as the shots that will be freed from Mills’ departure will mostly go to Ayinde Ubaka and Ron Dorsey so if you are needing someone on your Dream Team side then look for these two imports to improve their 9.1 and 8.3 ER respectively. I believe that the Tigers’ play won’t drop off that much and neither will the overall impact of the NBL. Sure Mills gave a huge boost but he didn’t back it up and so the public interest waned. If Andrew Bogut is recruited then that is a different kettle of fish altogether...
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