This document discusses the career of Australian basketball star Patty Mills and his journey from a fringe NBA player to an NBA champion. It describes how Mills overhauled his diet, training, and work ethic after being criticized by his coach for his body fat levels and lack of playing time. With the support and guidance of mentors like his mother, coaches Marty Clarke and Brett Brown, and teammates Tony Parker and Tim Duncan, Mills improved himself and earned more opportunities with the San Antonio Spurs, culminating in an NBA championship in 2014. The document advocates that identifying weaknesses and learning from mentors can help one improve their career in the same way it helped elevate Mills' career.

1. PERSONAL
BEST
06/16
The Numbers Game
[ BY IAN COCKERILL PHOTOGRAPHY BY DANIEL KNIGHTON ]
As Rio-bound basketball star Patty Mills shows,
mentors count, whether your performance is
measured in spreadsheets or box scores
THERE WAS A TIME when the numbers
weren’t so kind to Patty Mills.
Over his first four seasons in the
statistics-mad NBA, the personable kid
from Canberra averaged 11 minutes,
five points and 1.5 assists a game.
Journeyman numbers. In business terms,
he was the likeable, reliable employee
who punched the clock but didn’t add
much value to the bottom line.
Then there was his soft-drink-fuelled
body fat percentage, sitting at around 13
per cent – not what you’d expect from
your all-action back-court general.
Certainly not what his straight-shooting
coach at the San Antonio Spurs, Gregg
Popovich, expected. Fatty Patty was one
of the kinder monikers “Pop” bestowed on
his third- or fourth-string guard.
Granted, Mills had speed, a consistent
outside shot and sure ball-handling. The
NBA had numbers that showed that too.
But when Pop added everything up, he
didn’t have enough reasons to look along
his bench and regularly point to the guy
wearing Number 8.
And so, when the time came for Mills to
justify his pay cheque in 2013, the Spurs
having made it to the finals against
LeBron James’ Miami Heat, well, he sat.
And sat. By the end of Game 3, with Spurs
leading the series 2-1, he had played just
14 junk-time minutes. And then, right in
the middle of the finals, an abscess on his
right foot developed into a frightening
staph infection that meant urgent surgery
and a month-long recovery. Mills was a
downcast spectator as San Antonio
ultimately lost 4-3.
Asked later to explain his reluctance
to employ Mills, Popovich didn’t miss. “In
the playoffs you have to trust a guy
completely.” Ouch. In other words, when
the stakes were high and the big deals
were on the table, Mills wasn’t even
invited into the room. If he didn’t hear that
from his coach at the time, Mills could still
hear the drumbeats. And read the reports
where, commended for his demonstrative
support from courtside, he was often
described as an “expert towel-waver”.
Expert towel-waver? It hardly shouted
“long and successful career”.
With his foot healed, Mills made a
decision. He didn’t want to play anywhere
other than San Antonio, with its tradition of
success and rich Australian links dating
back to Andrew Gaze and Shane Heal.
And so he went to work. He made a bet
with teammate Boris Diaw that he’d be the
first of the two to cut his body fat to seven
per cent. He overhauled his workouts, his
diet. He ran hills from Texas to Thursday
Island. And then he turned up for the new
season, collected his bet, and showed off
Patty Mills v2. Nine months later, in the
series-clinching Game 5 of the NBA finals
against the same opponents, Mills
completed his turnaround when he
scored 17 points off the bench – more
than all but one of Spurs’ starters – to earn
his first championship ring.
The lesson for you? Let your career drift
and you too can be flirting with irrelevance
and, ultimately, the exit door. Conversely,
identify your shortcomings, change up
your game, and good things can come
your way.
Dumping doughnuts:
ditching junk food has
seen Mills lose his “Fatty
Patty” nickname.
AUSTRALIAN
CORRECTIONS ❑ISSUE: OK TO PRINT ❑COLOUR OK ❑
34 JUNE 2016
COLOUR OK ❑
JUNE 2016 35
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2. TACTICS
Just ask the 27-year-old now
averaging 20 minutes, nine points
and three assists on a
championship-contending team.
The guy with the security of a three-
year, US$12million contract. The
guy who’ll head to the Rio Olympics
in August as the chief string-puller
and offensive weapon in an exciting
Australian team tipped for a medal.
It’s a tribute to Mills’ fierce will to
succeed. To his preparedness to
suffer short-term pain – that body
fat didn’t just drop off – for long-
term gain.
And to his good sense in
listening to his mum.
Rewind Patty Mills’ story and they
appear at critical junctures; wise
heads who supply the spark for his
next surge forward.
Mills’ talent as a good listener
– and it is a talent – goes back to his
childhood in Canberra where, as
the son of an Aboriginal mother,
Yvonne, and Torres Strait Islander
father, Benny, he was the target of
slurs in playgrounds and sporting
arenas. When, teary-eyed, he
carried the burn home, his mother
sat him down. The same mother
who had been taken from her family
as one of the Stolen Generation.
“She’d ask me why I was crying,
why I was sulking,” recalls Mills.
“She’d say, ‘Sulking isn’t going to
get you anywhere Pat’ – I was
always Pat when I was in trouble.”
Instead, Mills was taught “to take
the high road” when every fibre in
his body told him to lash out. He
concedes it wasn’t easy. But you
know what? Inciters eventually lose
interest if there’s no sign their barbs
have penetrated.
That thick skin served Mills
especially well on the basketball
court, his second home after his
parents formed an indigenous
team called The Shadows. In time,
he learnt to weather the taunts to
concentrate on winning games.
Just as importantly, if a bad game
saw him benched, “my mum and
dad taught me that you don’t sulk
when you don’t get court time”.
In years to come, that particular
lesson grew in significance. Think
of it in terms of your own career. The
times you’ve been overlooked for
promotions you think you deserve
or projects you think you’d smash?
How did you react? Did you
intensify your effort, hone or add to
your skills, offer to help out where
possible, rally round those under
pressure? Or did you . . . sulk?
Well before his minutes started to
grow in 2013/14, Mills, the “expert
towel-waver”, left no one in any
doubt as to how he responded to
being used sparingly. At both his first
NBA team, Portland, and the Spurs,
he was the guy on the bench who
smiled and high-fived and waved
his towel. He oozed positive energy.
Yeah, you’re thinking, but he was
still getting splinters in his arse. True.
But that doesn’t recognise that the
people who held his future in their
hands saw that what he lacked in
raw numbers he helped make up for
in team dynamics and culture. It’s a
small tick, sure, but one that counts
in your favour, especially when
recruiting decisions are made.
And there’s another thing. Most
workplaces are a hornet’s nest of
competing ambitions and agendas.
When you find a colleague who
genuinely celebrates your
successes – You nailed that sale!
– despite being peripheral to them,
you can’t help but want that person
to succeed as well. Hell, you might
even give them a leg-up.
As it happens, Mills’ turn as an
“expert towel-waver” was a critical
component in being picked up by
San Antonio, a franchise that may
well be responsible for the original
“no dickheads” policy. That, and the
influence of another mentor. But
we’ll come to that.
When Mills accepted a basketball
scholarship at the Australian
Institute of Sport aged 16, it closed
the door on a potential AFL career
but brought him under the influence
of head coach Marty Clarke. A
tough-nut Tasmanian who’d been
in the back court of the 1989 NBL
championship-winning North
Melbourne Giants, Clarke quickly
set about adding polish to Mills’
natural athleticism. “He saw the
potential in me and I don’t know if I
could have progressed otherwise,”
says Mills, lighting up at the
mention of his old coach’s name
“There was a lot of detail with Marty.
Week to week he helped me grow
from a small, hustling player by
developing my shooting and
making my work ethic stronger. For
him, it was about discipline and not
being left behind.”
Within a year, Mills was invited to
train with the Australian senior team
preparing for the 2006 World
Championships. He didn’t go in
passively. Up close to the best
basketball players in the land, he
wasn’t about to let the opportunity
pass. “I learnt a lot from the
experienced guys like Jason Smith,
Chris Anstey and Sam Mackinnon,”
he says. “I saw them as my mentors
and I strived to develop similar
characteristics, to be a leader.”
Seeing senior teammates as
mentors, whether they’d apply the
tag to themselves or not, has been
a hallmark of Mills’ career. Years
later, when he was grinding
through tryout after tryout ahead of
the 2009 NBA draft, his Boomers
teammate Andrew Bogut – the
2005 draft’s No.1 pick – offered
some timely advice.
“He told me to make every
game, every practice, every
workout count,” recalled Mills
afterwards. “Don’t take anything for
granted and understand that
there’s always someone watching,
so don’t let up for one second.”
Fast-forward another few years and
Mills had found more teammate-
mentors in the shape of Spurs and
NBA legends Tony Parker and Tim
Duncan, whose locker by chance
was next to the talkative
Australian’s. As he told The
Oregonian newspaper shortly after
joining San Antonio, “I’ve kind of
been annoying in picking their
brains and trying to get better”.
Let’s flip that around. Ever had a
colleague ask you to share insights
or tips from your hard-won
experience? Annoying? No, more
like flattering. So take a look around
your workplace. See all that
knowledge floating about? Don’t let
it go untapped.
Back in 2009, Mills found
another ally in his constant quest
for improvement when Brett Brown
took over as head coach of the
Boomers. A thoughtful American
who’d made a new life for himself
as one of Australia’s leading
coaches, Brown took great pride in
developing young players. After
giving Mills the room to be
Australia’s best player at the 2010
World Championships, it was
Brown who helped throw him a
lifeline early in 2012 when he was
at risk of being spun out of the NBA
loop by the Portland Trailblazers,
who’d taken him at No.66 in the
2009 draft but used him little since.
As an assistant coach at San
Antonio – job-sharing is not
uncommon in international
basketball – Brown recommended
the club add Mills to its roster when
injury opened up a spot. Once he’d
unpacked his bags, Mills resumed
his apprenticeship under Brown.
“It was a great transition for me
coming to San Antonio – here’s
Brett Brown to help take me to the
elite NBA level,” says Mills of the
man who has since progressed to
be head coach of the Philadelphia
76ers. “He did a great job with me.
He helped me believe in myself.
He’d tell me, ‘Remember, you’re an
NBA point guard, Patty, you can do
that’. He’d just say, ‘Do what you do,
be who you are, don’t try to be
Steve Nash or Mark Jackson, be
Patty Mills, be yourself’.”
There’s the rub. Because,
ultimately, you can have all the
mentors in the world, but unless
Project Me involves building on
what you perceive as your unique
talents, you’re never going to have
the confidence to take your own
advice. That’s what Mills was able
to do when he engineered his
makeover in 2013.
Don’t think that means Mills no
longer needs or seeks mentors.
Chances are he’ll gravitate towards
them through every stage of his
basketball career and beyond.
Having profited so handsomely
from the wisdom they dispense,
he’s too smart to do otherwise.
Besides, it takes a brave man to
ignore his mother.
Even at the elite level, it can take a
near-death experience to jolt you
into career-defining action. In
Mills’ case, it was watching his
NBA dream be put on life-support
as he became a footnote in the
2013 finals. He sliced his body fat
percentage via some “extreme”
intervention in the kitchen.
PICK PROTEIN
“I was eating a lot of carbs and
that changed to chicken breast,
salmon, vegies, all in small portions.”
EAT OFTEN
“I was constantly eating, six meals a day,
always snacking, a handful of almonds, no
dairy, no coffee, no sugar, no soft drink – I even
cut back on Gatorade.”
DITCH THE FIZZ
“I love everything from Coke to ginger
beer. But it was only water. The one
exception was San Pellegrino sparkling water,
just so I could get that bubbly feeling.”
FORGET CHEAT DAYS
“It felt if I had a cheat day, I would have
been broken. Just get used to it. It’s now
my daily routine and I don’t need a cheat day.”
Taking Heat: it’s a
Mills vs LeBron duel
during Game Five of
the 2014 NBA Finals.
MILLS . . . AND BOOM! – GET SINGLE-DIGIT BODY FAT
CORRECTIONS ❑ISSUE: OK TO PRINT ❑COLOUR OK ❑
36 JUNE 2016 JUNE 2016 37
COLOUR OK ❑
ANDREWBOGUT
TOLDMETO
MAKEEVERY
GAME,EVERY
PRACTICE,EVERY
WORKOUTCOUNT
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