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Patty Mills, the Australian bronze medal winner and NBA champion, is being traded by the Brooklyn Nets to the Houston Rockets, ending his two-year stint with Brooklyn. NetsDaily has learned that the Nets are not taking a player back in the exchange, that like the Joe Harris trade on Friday, the Mills trade is essentially a salary dump. Mills will make $6.8 million this coming season.
Shams Charania of The Athletic was first to report the news.
Rockets are finalizing a deal to acquire Brooklyn’s Patty Mills via trade, sources tell me and @KellyIko.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) July 1, 2023
Later, Kelly Iko, who covers the Rockets for The Athletic, initially reported Mills is being “rerouted” to Memphis as part of a sign-and-trade involving Dillon Brooks going from the Rockets to Grizzlies...
Recently-acquired point guard Patty Mills is not staying in Houston and will be rerouted, sources tell @TheAthletic. He is being looped into the Dillon Brooks sign-and-trade in an expanded deal, sources say.
— Kelly Iko (@KellyIko) July 2, 2023
But on Sunday, Adrian Wojnarowski said that was incorrect. Mills is headed to the Thunder...
Oklahoma City is acquiring Brooklyn guard Patty Mills as part of a broader deal through Houston, sources tell ESPN. The Thunder will receive draft compensation to take on Mills’ $6.8M expiring deal.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) July 2, 2023
Mills, signed to a two-year taxpayers MLE in 2021, is the oldest Net at 34 years old. The Nets have now traded their two oldest players, the other being Joe Harris, 31.
The 6’0” combo guard played well in his first year with Brooklyn, appearing in a team-high 81 games, starting 48. He averaged 11.4 points in and hit 227 3-pointers, the second most in Nets history but as the season wore on, he tired. Then last season, his role diminished sharply and he played in only 40 games, starting two, while averaging 6.2 points and hitting only 49 threes.
The move puts the Nets about $15 million under the tax threshold and a few million under the cap, giving the team luxury tax relief and added flexibility both now an in the future. It will presumably add at $6.8 million trade exception to the Nets stockpile. Brooklyn already his exceptions of $19.9 million, $18.1 million, $4.5 million and $2.6 million.
Just last weekend, the community-oriented Mills appeared at the dedication of a five story mural at P.S. 958 in Sunset Park near the Nets training facility. In his comments at the dedication, Mills expressed his love of Brooklyn’s diversity and his gratitude how the community had embraced he and his wife.
“I hope they feel the diversity of what Brooklyn is. And the understanding that not only is Sunset Park a heavily Indigenous population here but also, many diverse cultures throughout the world and understanding that all of that is acceptable,” said Mills, whose role with indigenous peoples in Australia helped the community choose him to dedicate the mural. .
“And that we are one and that’s why I feel so comfortable in this in this community because I do feel accepted. I do feel welcomed. I do feel the community has welcomed me and my wife with open arms.”
Mills won an NBA title with the Spurs in 2014 and an Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo in 2021.
- Patty Mills on the move again to Thunder after Nets salary dump - Peter Botte - New York Post
- Nets trade Patty Mills to shed salary; agree to deal with Dennis Smith Jr. - Kristian Winfield - New York Daily News
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