Mills, Patty (1988-…), is a talented guard in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He is known for his speed and his long-distance shooting ability. The 6-foot (183-centimeter), 180-pound (82-kilogram) player debuted in the NBA with the Portland Trail Blazers. He has also played in professional leagues in Australia and China. In 2014, Mills became the first Indigenous (native) Australian to win an NBA championship. 
Patrick Sammy James Mills was born on Aug. 11, 1988, in Canberra, Australia. He has Indigenous heritage through both of his parents. His father, Benny Mills, is a member of the Torres Strait Islander peoples. His mother, Yvonne Mills, was one of thousands of Aboriginal children involuntarily taken from their families by the Australian government. These children became known as the Stolen Generations.
Patty Mills grew up in Canberra. He began playing basketball at age 4, when he joined a league that his parents had started for Indigenous youth. In 2005, he received a scholarship from the Australian Institute of Sport, an Australian government program that trains elite athletes. He was named the Australian Basketball Player of the Year in 2006.
Mills left Australia for the United States in 2007, after accepting a scholarship from St. Mary’s College in Moraga, California. He returned to Australia in 2008 to play on the men’s national team. He was the youngest player ever chosen for the team. He was the only college basketball player to compete at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, where he represented Australia.
Leaving St. Mary’s in 2009, Mills was drafted by the Trail Blazers. He played for the Portland team for two seasons. When the National Basketball Players Association went on strike in 2011, Mills played for Melbourne United (then called the Melbourne Tigers). Melbourne United is a National Basketball League (NBL) team based in Victoria, Australia. Mills was recruited by the Xinjiang Flying Tigers in China for the 2011-2012 season. He returned to the United States in March 2012 to play for the San Antonio Spurs, an NBA team based in Texas. Mills was the highest scorer in basketball at the 2012 London Olympics, again representing Australia.
Mills’s shooting talents helped the Spurs win the NBA championship in 2014. He played for the Australian national team in the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games, leading the team to a bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The 2020 Olympics were played in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Mills began playing for the Brooklyn Nets of New York in the 2021-2022 season. He was named a Member of the Order of Australia in 2022. Mills began the 2023-2024 season playing for the Atlanta Hawks. He joined the Miami Heat later that season.
