Fresh off another impressive showing on the international stage, veteran point guard Patty Mills has agreed to a one-year deal with the Utah Jazz, according to Adrian Wojnarowski. Mills will earn $3.3 million next season and the contract is fully guaranteed.
Mills, now 36 years old, averaged 16.5 points per game for Australia during the 2024 Paris Olympics and helped his country reach the quarterfinals. There, he hit a buzzer beater at the end of regulation to send the game to overtime, but the Boomers eventually fell to Nikola Jokic and Serbia.
A second-round pick by the Portland Trail Blazers back in 2009, this will be Mills’ 16th NBA season and sixth franchise. Over those years, he’s also played for the San Antonio Spurs, where he won a title in 2014, the Brooklyn Nets, Atlanta Hawks and Miami Heat. He also spent time overseas in China and his native Australia.
It will be interesting to see what sort of role Mills has with the Jazz. He only played 32 games last season with the Hawks and Heat, and is well past his prime. His deal is fully guaranteed for the upcoming season, though, so the Jazz clearly see value in having him around the entire way. Whether that’s as an actual contributor or more of a mentor figure in the locker room for some of their young guards remains to be seen.
After a flurry of recent moves, the Jazz have an extremely crowded backcourt. Last year’s first-round pick, Keyonte George, figures to be the starting point guard alongside Collin Sexton, while Jordan Clarkson has solidified the sixth-man spot. Rounding out the backcourt depth chart is No. 29 overall pick Isaiah Collier, Mills and fellow recent signings Johnny Juzang and Svi Mykhailiuk.
The Jazz are coming off a 31-51 season that had them stuck in no-man’s land, and it’s hard to see how they escape after spinning their wheels this summer. They gave Lauri Markkanen a huge extension and brought back largely the same roster. Better injury luck should help, but they don’t have the talent to make any noise in the loaded Western Conference.
