I am all for it, I think the only Australian teams looking for a starting PG are the Hawks and taipans and if BA help them sign Patty and it won't put them over the cap (which I doubt) why not.
It would be funny if he went to NZ don't know if BA would be willing to help if that was the case.

Could we fit him in Adelaide? Play him at SG (be very short backcourt)

Whilst I would support it in principle, any attempt to assist a team to sign him that isn't consistent with the current points and salary cap would be unfair to other teams and hypocrytical of the principles of the cap.

Would love to see it happen, can't see how it can without unfairly assisting one team over the rest of the league.

Here's a question - would Sixers fans be happy to see Mills tearing it up for the Tigers with BA part funding his salary? Can something that brings interest and benefit to the league as a whole, but disadvantages the Sixers, be supported by Sixers fans?

I'd be torn between two allegiances - the club and the game.

Maybe BA can meet Mills' insurance premiums? Other than that, the points and salary cap applies?

I think they should lobby for Federal Govt funding on top of his NBL contract for him to play in Cairns and work with the indigenous community. If needed, BA could match the Feds grant 1:1 given he will be promoting basketball in those communities.

Would be win win, and the money BA pays would be for legit purposes.

Would have been much better if BA had acted earlier.
Unfortunately, its almost too late, as many teams have their contracted PG's.

At least if they had done it earlier, EVERY team would have had an opportunity to offer him a deal.
Now only really Cairns and Wollongong can do something about it..If he had a full set of teams to chose from, there would IMHO a greater chance of Patty coming to the NBL.

And I think BA are going to have to give more than 50k-100k to secure his services.
200k sounds more appropriate (on top of what he could be earning in the NBL).

Can't see the NBL doing it unless it's going to be in big city market on the East Coast.

So that would rule out Adelaide, Perth, NZ, Woolongong, Cairns, Townville and Gold Coast.

They would also want to see it increase crowd numbers which rules out Melbourne with their small stadium.

I think they would only do it for Sydney myself.

Considering the NBL clubs are part owners of BA i cant see how they could make this work. Would the 36ers be happy knowing that their money is being used to make an opposition team better, i doubt it. Of course if Patty cam here i am all for it.

I'm not sure how much bang BA would get for their buck with Mills. I can understand why individual clubs would want to sign him, he his obviously a strong player who would greatly improve any team he played on. But how many extra people would attend games solely for the purpose of seeing Mills? I'd expect an increase in ticket sales and an increase exposure but I wouldn't expect it to be earth shattering at all.

He's a talented player. He's got NBA experience, which is great. But he's not a marquee name. You get someone like Shaq or Iverson and to a lesser extent Marbury, then BA might be getting some real return on their investment. But Mills? I wouldn't expect Mills coming to play in the NBL would have much of a greater impact than when Schenscher returned. It sparked some interest but hardly anything substantial.

I'm not knocking Mills. He's an excellent player. But is he a box office pull? I don't think he is all that much.

Skip, I think it doesn't really matter which team it is as it will give exposure to the NBL which ever team he plays for and he will be playing games in every stadium (if lockout continues)

What Macdub said....

I still think any team willing to obtain a player with the knowledge that he will more than likely not see the season out is desperate.

It is unfair to the other teams if he gets a salary boost from outside the salary cap and not rated properly on the points ratings.

And it is unfair to the fans of the team that get a player like patty, or an nba player, knowing that half way through the season they will lose their star and start losing games.

Unless he would commit to staying the whole season and post season, which he wouldn't. I don't think it should even be considered even for promotional purposes.

Would be much better to set up an all star type game, NBL vs The World, have these players that keep getting mentioned and assemble a team made up of the big name Australians playing over seas and fill it up with some other names to grab attention perhaps from the NBA. Have it in a large stadium, Sydney? and make sure it is televised and advertised. Maybe make it the climax of the pre season tournament? Which would raise the awareness of that too.

That would get the people that follow NBA but not NBL to see some of the NBL players in action and raise the profile of the league among other sport followers too.
This would raise the profile of the league without jepodising its integrity, ie having fill ins paid over the "strict" salary and points cap and then bail half way through the season anyway.

He would have to fit inside the salary and points cap, but both Wollongong and Cairns can do that. And if he leaves they simply bring in an import, there are often some good players available right after NBA rosters are finalised, and there is the traditional European clean out around Christmas time.

I dont see it is a big issue. If you sign an import in that spot he might be gone half way through the season anyway.

Agree Paul, If BA is willing to help out a club sign him as long as it doesn't go over the salary cap I can't see the problem.

thedoctor, would he have much of an insurance premium given that he doesn't have an existing contract?

Big Sexy, I reckon I'd sign Mills in Adelaide regardless and deal with whatever issues arose (short on bigs, etc). If he left part-way through the season, then that money is free to shuffle things around.

paul, I think that sort of offer would still be seen to be favouring a particular team. Do any fans whinge much about this happening in the WNBL? I've seen a few mentions of it and LJ, but not Bishop who I think might've benefited from it once?

Maybe we can approach Bogut

Isaac - I'm not sure what the significance of his qualifying offer is? can anyone explain that - I read an article on qualifying offers that someone else posted a link to on here, but it didn't help!

he might be able to insure himself against his likely future earnings, rather than against a specific contract? not sure if that type of product is offered, but isn't completely ridiculous.

I agree re:signing Mills regardless of roster balance. I reckon there's some serious extra bums on seats. plus, I genuinely think he will be on another level to most PG's in the NBL

Exactly, Mills will bring so much to the table for the team and excitement to the fans so i also would sign him regardless of team balance, we would still have the import spot spare, so at worst sign a cheap NZBL/SEABL import who can play both PF/C ala Galen Young who has just finished playing NZBL, and would likely be cheap.

A team of Warren, Herbert, Weigh, Ballinger, Johnson, Mills, Crosswell, Ng, Creek, Young

Depth charts of

C Johnson/Ballinger/Young
PF Ballinger/Young
SF Weigh/Creek/Herbert/Young
SG Mills/Herbert/Ng/Weigh/Creek/Crosswell
PG Warren/Mills/Crosswell

Training players such as Daly, Mottram, Vasiljevic, Harris if available/interested with one of them going into the 10 if Mills goes mid season.

Defiantly seems workable to me, a bit small but the NBL isnt really a big league and guard combo of Warren and Mills would be seen as small and with defensive issues, but would be lightning quick, be high scoring and a nightmare for opposition defenders, i think a SG such as Penney would have more trouble guarding Mills, than Mills would Penney.

So definatly have a go with the small team and sign Mills if possible

Jonno, the 36ers have Warren and Crosswell as the PG's.
I know the chance of having Mills is exciting, but theres no need to get him if it means upsetting the team balance and been guard heavy. Teams would absolutely murder Mills defensively at the 2 spot (He would have to mark players like Penney, Daryl Hudson-if he was to return etc.)

Yes Mills would be the best PG in the league if he came to Aussie.

But IMO the 36ers just have to bit the bullet and say..We've got our PG's, we need to build a BALANCED team and go after what we need, not what we already have.

Id take Mills at the 1 spot, or not at all. Offensively he wouldn't have a problem at the 2 (because he has that scorers mentality), but defensively his lack of height would be exposed severely.

It's not their fault (36ers). IMO its BA's fault that they didn't put this offer to Mills as soon as the lockout was upon us. At least if they had done it back then, a team like the 36ers may not have gone after Warren, and potentially they could have got Mills.
You have to reward teams that put their rosters together early--I think that is a sign that the coaching staff have devoted time and effort and they have been proactive in the recruiting process.

It's unfair that teams that haven't put their rosters together should get the opportunity to recruit Mills.
Every team should have an equal chance, or BA should just can the idea.

Not really BA's call, Mills hasnt made up his mind yet and it sounds like he wont for a little while either.

should they then help the Breakers get Sean Marks?

That would be BBNZ's responsibility, and I would have no problem with him getting paid to genuinely promote basketball as well as play for the Breakers.

As it is though, I think the Breakers get plenty of help.

MACDUB apparantly Cairns have already signed a PG & are close to signing a SG. They just haven't released it yet!!

So if BBNZ stepped in to help make that happen no one on here would have a problem with it?

If it's for genuine work what would the issue be? Whether fans of other clubs would whinge is a different matter, but that is hardly a basis for decision making is it?

Mystro as I have stated before in this thread, as long it doesn't got over the points cap or salary cap I would have no problem with them helping NZ sign him, the same as I said with Patty. And if BBNZ pay him some more money to promote the sport in general that would also be fine, but the NBL would have to see all the details of that deal.

Definitely get Mills regardless of team balance - he's good enough that you could worry about the details later. Herbert could tackle a Penney, Rush, etc. Shuffle Weigh down to play some PF, Ballinger to play some C.

Get a Pero now and you've got a spare import spot for later. Or get an import big now and replace Mills with whatever big is floating around down the track.

I don't think Mills + Big is going to do any worse than Big + Big. Behind Ballinger and Johnson, there's not exactly loads of minutes to throw around anyway.

My concern at this point with the roster is that the D/leadership issue (save for Crosswell and Herbert) hasn't been seriously addressed especially in dropping Holmes. Warren is young. Weigh is coming from a good program but is young. Pero or Mottram aren't going to solve it.

Anon: Sean Marks has spent the last 10 years in the NBA, the same league that Penney has been busting his ass to get another shot at playing in.

I would agree that Penney is a more marquee player than Marks. So he sits on an NBA injury list and gets the odd run, so what?

for 10 years he has consistently had a contract in the NBA and while I agree that he hasn't had much consistent court time, there is a reason he keeps getting contracts.
It is easy to say that Penney is the marquee player as you get to see him play all the time where you hardly ever get to see Sean Marks play, I have watched a bit of Marks playing for NZ (and a few NBA games he has got Court Time in) over the years and was surprised how good he is for an NBA "benchwarmer".

Would be good to see Marks play in the NBL.
But, no way BBNZ could put in a lot of money.
They are in GRAVE financial strive--Always have been.

BBNZ lost $214,000 in 2009--They blew a lot of money staging the World Champs

They made a surplus of just $1,000 in 2010
In 2011, they predicted they would make $70,000 (Excellent for their standards, but still hardly anything)

As you see, they don't have the money to fund Marks.

what if Pak N Save Albany or Burger King decided they want to front the money? How do we differentiate between BBNZ, BA and a 3rd party putting up cash for top tier players? Then we have a league where only the rich (or large centres) have a shot.
I personally believe teams should recruit their own players under the salary cap and points cap without interference or direct help from BA or BBNZ to keep the playing field level for all not just a few.

I think the line is the third party employee cant be a sponsor of the club or directly involved (ie an owner's business), so those two companies would be out.

BBNZ undergoing a big review, so it def wont be them. Could it be Br@ndish again?

That's the thing, Paul Blackwell (Breakers Owner) is now on the BBNZ board, so what's to stop him from financing BBNZ through his other business interests (before mentioned Supermarket Chain) and getting Sean Marks over here but under a false guise of BBNZ to benefit his NBL Franchise?
If there is a way to do it that is fair to all Franchises I'm not completely against it.

Once again I wouldnt see that as an issue as long as the work done is genuine and the money paid for it is realistic. This is the judgement all leagues that allow third party payments have to make.

But if Burger King give money to BBNZ it is then BBNZ's money to spend on promoting the game. If they were just paying Marks to be in NZ and play for the Breakers that would be different as the work doesnt fit the pay. Of course, I think this is purely hypothetical.

yes all this is hypothetical interweb banter until someone actually expresses serious interest in signing with an NBL team. No argument that it would be great for fans to see some serious NBA quality players in the NBL

Isaac, as much as I would love to see Mills play for the Sixers, I think the priority has to be a high quality big first of all.

Last season, DJ and Balls both got into foul trouble on numerous occasions and we were punished when we couldn't keep them on the court. Even when they were on the court, we weren't great defensively or rebounding wise!

So the 3rd big has to be someone who is good enough to not only spell both DJ and Balls, but also to step into the breach when one of our starters gets in foul trouble (or is just not having an impact as happened a lot last season too).

Ie, it has to be someone who can play 30 mins if necessary and compete with an opponents starters - a Rychart, Hinder or Gruber type.

So IF we get that kind of big man, then I think we could get away with Mills as our tenth player, but not if our backup big man is just a benchie who can only be relied upon for 8-10 mins per game against the opponents backups.