The Boomers’ spirit of Cathy Freeman v $3.4bn worth of superstars of US basketball
Patty Mills has spent his adult life trying to win Australia’s first Olympic medal for men’s basketball. Now he gets another chance when the Boomers play the US.
Patty Mills had the Tokyo interview room in the palm of his hand.
He was preparing to carry the Australian flag at the opening ceremony when he was asked what the Olympics meant to him. What they meant to a man with so much sublime Indigenous blood in his veins.
“It’s Cathy,” he said.
Mills has spent his adult life trying to win a first Olympic medal for Australian men’s basketball. All the quest has ever really done is rip his heart out.
On Thursday, the 32-year-old four-time Olympian gets another chance when the Boomers play the US in the semi-finals.
It’s Davids v Goliaths. A Boomers team made up mostly of mid-level NBA players and blokes who ply their trade in the NBL up against $3.4bn worth of superstars.
Tip-off at Tokyo’s Saitama Super Arena is 2.15pm (AEST).
“You dream of this,” Mills said.
He doesn’t need to play for the Boomers. He makes his fame and fortune in America’s lucrative NBA. On Wednesday, he signed a $16m deal to join the Brooklyn Nets, thank you very much, but when he says the Boomers mean more to him right now, he’s being sincere. He’s worth every dime to the Nets because he’s a hell of a player. And he’s a hell of a bloke.
It will be a day of days if the Boomers ambush the US to be guaranteed their first Olympic medal. The Americans are the most formidable foes in the sport. The latest incarnation of the Dream Team, led by the multi-million-dollar man of the NBA, Kevin Durant, whom Mills will join at the Nets next season.
Actually, they are all multi-million-dollar men in the US team They’re coached by Gregg Popovich, who just so happens to have coached Mills at the San Antonio Spurs for the past decade.
“I’ve said so many things about Patty Mills that his head is huge already,” Popovich grinned. “He’s a terrific, unique basketball player with a heart as big as this building. He loves his country. He loves his teammates. He’s their leader and off the court he’s an even better person than he is on the court. So, he’s pretty special.”
Mills said of Popovich: “He’s obviously meant a great deal to me for a very long time — a decade. It’s fair to say he’s helped shape me into who I am today on the court and off the court. We’ve been through a lot together. I’ve got a lot to thank him for. Now you get to this situation and we’re both representing our countries, which we’re both so passionate about.”
The Boomers are a bit of a ragtag bunch. Mills is a superstar and NBA champion. He’s a leader who knows how to win – he just hasn’t won with the Boomers yet.
Joe Ingles is a bit of a superstar for the Utah Jazz when he’s in the mood. They’re the go-to scorers for Australia. Around them are scrapping in-your-face defenders like Matisse Thybulle, Dante Exum and Matthew Dellavedova, all of whom have NBA experience.
Around them is a roster of largely Australia-based NBL players, most notably Chris Goulding and Nathan Sobey, who roll their sleeves up and rip in.
Coach Brian Goorjian is a call-a-spade-a-shovel type who will drum one message into them: Don’t be intimidated.
“This is what you prepare for,” Mills said. “To have the opportunity to go to a gold medal match. Against the best team in the world.
The Boomers’ Olympic curse has left them with four fourths in a brutal history of near-misses, close shaves, agonising defeats and disasters. I’ve rarely seen a more shattered sporting team than the Boomers after they lost their bronze-medal playoff at Rio.
It may be now or never for the Mills, Ingles and Dellavedova generation. And it shan’t be easy. After being thrashed by the US in the quarter-finals, Spanish coach Sergio Scariolo said they had “10 times more talent than any other team right here”.
Ingles didn’t want to believe it.
“In 15 years, I don’t think I’ve gone in expecting to lose a game,” he said. “We’re well aware it’s a tough game. They’re all tough games. But we’re a confident group. We know what we do. We know where our bread is buttered. We’re going to go in confident, it doesn’t matter who we play.
“You have respect for them, for what they’ve done, who they’ve got and their coach, but if we’re not going confident into a game, there’s no point in showing up.”
The Boomers upset the US in an Olympic warm-up match at Las Vegas last month. That was a different ball game … a relatively unimportant ball game.
Thybulle said: “There’s nothing to be afraid of. They’re all human. Being a basketball player, having played against these guys a lot during the NBA season, we know that. Our ability to adjust and keep getting better and trusting ourselves is really going to be the true test.”
From Exum: “There’s only five on the court at a time. We can play defence and only one of them can have the ball at a time. We know a lot about them. We’ve played them. Obviously they’ve got the hype of being Team USA but … it’s a semi-final of an Olympic Games. Anything can happen.”
Mills will pour his heart and soul into this. It will be compelling viewing. It may be unfortunate viewing, of course, because the US may really have 10 times the talent of everyone else here. But from the moment Mills arrived in Tokyo, the magic dust has been on him.
What is that dust, exactly? It’s the way he carries himself. It’s the way he speaks of his deep Indigenous pride. It’s the way he wants Aboriginal kids to look at him and think, wow, that’s how far I can go. It’s the way he truly cares about Australian basketball and his teammates. It’s the way he respects the Olympics. It’s a reminder of someone who stirred the soul a couple of decades ago. Win, lose, draw or come fourth again, in spirit, it’s Cathy.
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