'You need a guy like him': How Patty ended a seven-month exile

Mills played his first regular-season game since April when he was thrown on the court for the last five minutes of the Hawks' big win against the Washington Wizards on Sunday.

Just 24 hours later he was back on the bench and didn't set foot on the court in the Hawks' 10-point loss to the Boston Celtics on Monday.

Even so, the veteran guard showed no signs of rust despite the most disruptive period of his 13-year career, scoring five points in his brief stint on the court against the Wizards.

His absence from the Hawks' regular rotation has raised plenty of eyebrows after he was traded between four teams in 10 days in the off-season.

"Look who's getting his first action as a Hawk, welcome to Atlanta Patty Mills," the commentators said. "His first game as a Hawk, one of the great guys in this league coming to Atlanta and finally getting a little burn."

The dramatic shift in Mills' game involvement has shocked many in Australia over the past 18 months after he slid out of the Brooklyn Nets rotation and was shifted around during the trade period.

Mills signed a two-year deal to stay at the Nets at the start of the 2022-23 season, but his role changed when coach Steve Nash was axed.

The Nets offloaded Mills to the Houston Rockets, who moved him to the Oklahoma City Thunder before he eventually landed in Atlanta after a hectic 10 days of change.

The Australian Boomers are watching the Mills situation closely given he's a key part of their hopes of winning another medal at the Olympic Games in Paris next year.

Mills has been a key cog of the Boomers squad since making his Olympic debut in 2008 and led the team to its first major international medal at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

But with the rise of Josh Giddey and Dyson Daniels among others, Mills may play a different role than he has in the past despite scoring 42 points in the bronze-medal match two years ago.

"I came in 2008 to learn what the Boomers, what playing for Australia was about," Mills said on the Rose Gold documentary.

"... We still have a gold medal to achieve and that mindset and gold standard isn't going to change. Gold vibes only - we've still got a gold medal to get."

Mills is no stranger to launching himself into Olympic campaigns and using them as a springboard for his career prospects.

Beijing put him on the NBA radar, London - where was the leading scorer for all teams - helped propel him to an NBA championship two years later and he secured his move to the Nets after the 2021 Games.

But he is now facing a different challenge. He played just 40 games last season - his lowest tally since his rookie season in 2009-10 and has been on the court for just five of a possible 768 minutes so far this season. He sat on the bench for the entire game again in a 10-point loss to Boston.

He took his chance against the Wizards, nailing his only three-point attempt and hitting 1-2 from the field.

The Hawks snapped him up to add depth to their roster, but with superstar Trae Young dominating as the team's general, Mills is having to bide his time.

"[Mills] is a guy you need later in the season," the commentators said when he got on the court.

"He's a veteran with championship experience, a great shooter ... you're going to need a guy like that."