If he could make himself a bit more of a pass first PG like Kidd, he could find himself getting much better shot options

I thought the Boomers looked better with Delladova @ PG and use Mills of the bench to change the tempo up

What total & utter garbage of a comment! Patty is one of the premium talents this country has ever produced! He'll never be a Jason Kidd type PG he is very much in the mold of a Tony Parker type PG. We must not forget how young Patty is, in time his game will evolve & he'll better at picking when it's time to score & when it's time to get someone else a shot. Patience is a virtue!

So long as the game plan is to play inside out, like in Game 3 of the Oceania series, then I think we will do just fine, with or without Patty.

I'm with you big Marty - Inside Out style of game looked far better.

Sure Patty can make improvements but he is our no.1 point guard. His tempo pressure was excellent.

You only have to have a lot at the effect he had on Dickel, who has usually played very well in these series, to a player who just snapped in the first game under the constant up tempo pressure that was applied at both ends of the floor.

Mills collated stats for this International season (not including game one against Spain where he had a shocker, but I feel was given little help) vs Tony Parker's Eurobasket 2011 stats to date:

Mills            Parker
Gm  7                7
Min 25.3             33.9
Pts 15.9             22.1
2FG 48.8%            50.5%
3FG 30.5%            27.8%
FT  77.3%            80.0%
Rbd 2.1              3.1
Ass 2.6              4.7
Stl 0.4              1.3
To  3.6              1.4

Perhaps, Isaac, you could fix it up, if it's not too much trouble?

AB4E, point production is certainly there but the assist/ball handling could do with some work to push him that one step further.

I could handle the turnover count provided the assists were about triple what he is averaging. He's definately the best guard we have right now, but I wouldn't say best PG.

If he could average something like 16 & 6, I'd be much happier.

Cheers, Isaac. You run a tight ship ;)

I know he got injured in his final year in college and all but the year after Patty Mills departed Saint Mary's they made the sweet sixteen with Mickey McConnell running the point.

Not going to go as far as calling him a a ball hog but he needs to improve his pg skills. We see flashes but too often he lets himself down.

I think Patty Mills is a perfect spark player to come of the bench.

Unfortunately he rates himself to highly and takes difficult shots when he has never been a great 3 point shooter.

He should increase his mid range shots while take less 3 point shots.

Kyrie Irving at point and move mills to the 2 spot?

I honestly believe Dellavadova is the PG to take the Boomers forward. Tenacious defender with good length and he gets his players involved around him with his passing ability and is selective about what shots he takes. I was very impressed with him all series.

There is no escaping that regardless of the way that they play, Mills and Bogut are our two best and most important players, hence the reason they are in the NBA.

The Tony Parker comparison is an interesting one, however it's not as easy as a stats comparison simply because of the relative experience of both players. Parker is a 29 year old three-time NBA Champion and finals MVP, whereas Mills is only 23 and really just getting started in his career.

Comparing the two at the same age gives a more realistic comparison and clearly demonstrates Parker to be the superior player. At 23 and in his second NBA season, Parker started all 82 games and averaged 15 points and 5 assists as San Antonio won the championship.

This is not a knock against Patty, just a comparison of facts.

Patty might one day reach the heights of Parker, but I feel the comparison to be slightly unfair.

Never the less, he is our second most important player, and playing alongside Bogut may enhance his production. I say this from two lines of thinking, (1) the pair may engage in some more pick-and-roll play giving Patty the change to take some more pull-up mid range jumpers, a much higher percentage shot for him, and (2) Bogut's passing ability out of the high and low post should get Mills some better looks from the three-point line.

Forget about anyone else, Brett Brown is going to ride these two hard all the way to our final game in London, and they are clearly our most talented point-guard and centre combination since Heal and Longley in Sydney.

Not too sure what the hype about Delladova is. Yes he's a good prospect for Australia- and he is extremely young, however he hasn't been all that impressive in my eyes. He's a good passing point guard (Jason-Kidd like), however I think we need our PG to able to shoot confidently as well, not sure if Della is confident in that aspect.

Kyrie Irving would be the absolute dream fit for Australia imo. A Point Guard of his athleticism and creativity is exactly what AUS needs in my opinion.

Patty Mills has explosive speed and is great on the quick-break but he doesn't seem to be able to get to the basket often and lay-up (under pressure) like alot of the NBA guards do.

I definitely have faith in Patty (and Della off the bench), however I'm desperately hoping Kyrie can don the Australian singlet- I think he's got a good attitude (+ the skill obviously).

As for the original post, I think Patty Mills is fantastic for Australia.

Sure he needs to iron out some parts of his game, but his spirit and skill does make him our second best player currently I believe (Bogut 1st, Mills or Maric 2nd).

Let's go Patty!

Irving tweeted this morning
"I heard the boomers qualified for London 2012...that's what i like to hear"

Id love to see him in the green n gold!

Again, I think we'll all find that Bogut will make a huge difference to Mill's game. Bogut is one of those rare big men that you can run your entire offence through. So automatically, Patty becomes the second option for us offensively, which may cut down some of his forced shots that we saw in this NZ series.

Ha ha. Very good Anonymous. I see you're still riding the Kyrie Irving train. Fair enough too. Having two number 1 NBA draft picks in the same team would be simply awesome. But until he commits, I'm not including him in any of my mock teams.

It may be as simple as two bigs in (Bogut and Andersen) and two bigs out (most likely Baynes and Ogilvy). Or Brett Brown could decide to go really big for London, therefore only dropping one of Baynes or Ogilvy and likely one of Gibson or Martin.

The only way I see Jawai getting a shot at London is if he escalates his game to Maric's level and becomes the 2012 All-Euroleague centre. If that doesn't happen, then I think either Bogut or Maric would have to be injured or unavailable for him to have a shot at London.

Patty has his limitations, but these are outweighed by what he can do well IMO. We simply don't have anyone else who is close to as quick as Mills and that is a critical asset when we matchup against teams like Spain, Parker from France, or Teodosic from Serbia. Mills at least has a hope of staying in front of those guys. Dellavedova, while he is not slow, has struggled against the really quick guys.

Mills other big assets are:
- His ball-handling, which is very good and basically has rendered ineffective all opposition attempts at full court pressure. (Contrast Mills ability to get the ball up the floor under pressure with that of Martin or Gibbo!)
- His mid-range shooting. He is not a great three point shooter (just ok) and he struggles to finish at the rim against any decent big man, but give him a big guy who can set a good high pick to get him an open look from the top of the key and he is money!

Against that, Mills has been shooting too many threes, has turned the ball over too much and can be exploited on the defensive end by some guards because of his height.

I agree he needs to improve on the first two, but as someone said above, he is still young and these are pretty obvious things that he can easily improve on if he works at it. Obviously, he can't do much about his height, but that is where Dellavedova is a nice complement to Mills. Delly is also better at getting his shot off at the basket and has proven to be a steady hand in advancing the ball and getting it into the right hands

In that regard, I think the Boomers are quite lucky to have two contrasting PG options in Mills and Delly, because it will allow them to adjust pretty effectively to most teams.

If I were Brown, I would seriously consider making the starting PG dependent on who the opponent is each game, because I think both have a lot to offer under differing scenarios...

Of course, if Irving comes to play for the Boomers then that would be even better! :D

Patty needs to learn how to play team basketball.

Stop jacking up three after three!!!!!!!!

Beantown, love your comments, especially considering you're talking up Patty's strengths rather than focusing on his weaknesses.

Aside from his ballhandling and mid-range game, I would also like to point on his full-court man-to-man pressure is second to none. I would like the coaching staff to utilise that a bit more as he can be extremely disruptive to the opposing offence, especially against those teams that really rely on their point guard play.

I agree that the Mills/Dellavedova point guard combination works and should serve us well all the way through to London.

Delly's value to the team is that he can guard a guy like Penney which means we don't lose much if we want to play two pgs on the floor at the same time.

Beantown made a good point. Delly will struggle against the quick and small 6 foot nothing guards.

On that level Mills is invaluable to us.

He isnt bad for the team, but the boomers do need to have a different starter to play majority minutes. Patty is the perfect game changer point guard off the bench, who comes on for 15 to 20 minutes a game.

He needs to be played exactly as he was in the 2008 olympics!

Delly's two seasons of stats at SMC: Matthew Dellavedova

37.6% 3PT last season and 39.8% in his Freshman year...not bad really!

Brown was talking about running the two of them together at times in the future.

Imagine if NZ had a CJ type player at the point! Penney cant do it all! The Kiwis need a point guard. Tait & Dickel will not take them to the Olympics! Tait would be handy off the bench but Dickel is embarassing on the world stage. His tackle on the rookie 'delly' in game 1 was evident of how useless & insecure he is. I like the kiwis bigs but Dickel you are a DICKHEAD!!!

Disgrace...

mills ability to penetrate is irreplaceable in the boomers.

super - impressed by delly.

we finally have quite good depth at pg

mills, delly, martin, gibson, markovic, cadee.

Of course he is good for the Boomers. I just don't think he is the centrepiece. His game is defined by his speed, which is impressive, and he has some very credible skill sets. He is just not a consistent scorer. In a, by competence, pecking order he would probably be fourth or fifth option to take the lions share of the shots. I actually agree completely with Baller#3, he is more an off the bench impact player. I'll say it again, scoring 20 odd against Team USA was the worst thing to happen to Patty's game. He recieved so much adulation for that one game, particular the scoring numbers, that I think he feels that is how he is defined game in and game out.

Give the kiwi bigs 4 years- Adams, Loe, Pledger, Fotu...