Patty Mills driving down the court for the Brooklyn Nets.
Patty Mills Receives NBA Sportsmanship Award
Each year, the award is presented to the player who “best represents the ideals of sportsmanship on the court.” For the Australian-born player and former Gael, community has always been a part of the game.
Former Saint Mary’s men’s basketball star Patty Mills has always embodied Lasallian values throughout a highly successful professional career, putting a premium on service to his community and using his platform as a well-known athlete to advance worthwhile causes.
On Friday, Mills was honored by his peers for the way in which he approaches the game itself as he was named the recipient of the Joe Dumars Trophy for winning the 2021-22 NBA Sportsmanship Award. The award honors a player who “best represents the ideals of sportsmanship on the court.”
Currently a key contributor for the Brooklyn Nets, Mills received 1,975 total points, along with 58 first-place votes, in a vote of NBA players. He is in his first season in Brooklyn, having joined the team as a free agent in August of 2021.
Mills has long brought a community-centered focus to his work. A native of Canberra, Australia, he founded the inaugural season of the Indigenous Community Basketball League in 2021 to establish an avenue to participate in basketball for Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders 14 years old and younger.
In July of 2020, Mills announced that he would donate his entire salary earned during the pandemic-shortened season to Black Lives Matter Australia, Black Deaths in Custody, and the “We Got You” Campaign. In response to fires throughout Australia, he organized a $750,000 donation to the relief effort from fellow Australians in the NBA. Almost a decade earlier, he also worked to raise funds for flood relief in Queensland through a T-shirt campaign with Wears My Shirt.
In Moraga, Mills stands as one of the legends of Saint Mary’s men’s basketball. A second-round pick by the Portland Trail Blazers in 2009, Mills starred for two seasons as a Gael. In 2015, his contributions to the program were recognized and honored when his No. 13 jersey was retired.
He has gone on to become an international star, not only as a member of the Nets, Blazers, and San Antonio Spurs but also as a leader for his native Australia at multiple Olympic Games. In 2021, he became the first Indigenous man ever to serve as his country’s flag bearer at the Olympics.