He's got a great big garage filling up with great, big, expensive muscle cars, including a prized 1970 Valiant.

He can comfortably indulge his hobby of tournament poker, knowing he'll have a base income of $A13 million a year to cushion him after a bad night at the tables.

As an NBA player earning the sort of money that makes Matt Giteau's bank balance look modest, the colossal Aussie inhabits a world so unfamiliar to his countrymen he best describes parts of it as being ''kinda like in the movies''.

It's a world where the competitive streak that carries athletes into the pro league also drives them to compete with each other to have the best car, biggest house, most outrageously expensive jewellery.

It's a world a humble Canberra 20-year-old named Patrick Mills could step into in a few weeks' time.

Mills has nominated for the NBA draft and on June25 his name could be read out at Madison Square Garden in New York, changing his and his family's lives forever.

A lightning fast guard who starred for Australia at last year's Olympics, Mills is not be the prized recruiting target the 213cm Bogut was in 2005, when he went No1 in the draft.

But he is on plenty of clubs' radars, including the Chicago Bulls who invited him to train with them this week.

In a show of caution, Mills has kept the option to withdraw from the draft and go back to college if he doesn't fancy himself as a first-round pick. But Bogut thinks that's unlikely.

''Patty's definitely got a chance to be a first-round pick, from what I hear. I've got a feeling he'll stay in,'' Bogut told The Canberra Times.

For more, pick up a copy of today's Canberra Times