Playing for the San Antonio Spurs is not your usual NBA experience. Suiting up for the organization means you've not only committed to becoming a better basketball player, but also to becoming a better man and human being.
By the end of a player's tenure with the franchise, especially under the stewardship of former main man and all-time great Greg Popovich, you were almost guaranteed to learn about other cultures, expand your thinking, and leave a more well-rounded person.
Australian basketball legend Patty Mills saw this firsthand, as Popovich and his coaching staff would go out of their way to educate Mills' teammates, fans, and the community about his deep-rooted and passionate Indigenous background.
While the Spurs always found themselves on the league's biggest stages during his tenure, the moment was never bigger than discovering the diverse cultures that sat in the locker room. For Mills, there was no greater example of this than when Coach Pop began preparing for the 2014 rematch against the Miami Heat by talking about an Australian human rights activist.
"So we are preparing for the NBA Finals. LeBron James , Dwyane Wade , Chris Bosh . And you can't believe how intense of a feeling this is to say we are back (in the Finals) and everyone locked in," Mills said . "So here we are, and you can feel, not the tension in the room but the gameplan, what's the game plan going to be to get this thing done."
"Pop is at his table in front of the whiteboard and the TV and he's looking down at his palm cards that he always has, and he looks up and looks at all of us and says 'does anyone in here know who Eddie Mabo is?'. And straight away I got a lump in my throat and I can only imagine what my face looked like, I was just speechless," he continued.
For this story to bring Mills to the brink of tears years later, it shows how much respect he had not only for Mabo but also for Pop in that very moment. It can't be overstated how big those NBA Finals were for the Spurs, who lost in a heartbreaking seven-game series to the Heat just a year before.
In that series, the Spurs looked like they had sealed the deal before a shock Game 6 collapse in crunch time handed the Heat a lifeline and ultimately the series win.
So only one can imagine the intensity pulsating through that film room as that same roster found themselves with a redemption opportunity the very next campaign. Instead of diving right into the film study or breaking down the tendencies of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, Popovich instead decided to bestow inspiration in another way by celebrating Mills' culture.
As Patty details, it lit a fire under him, unlike anything he's ever experienced in his career, and it turned out to pay dividends for the Spurs in the Finals. Mills was superb off the bench, averaging double figures and shooting a sizzling 56% from three-point range. He was so good in fact, that he outscored both Wade and Bosh in Games 4 and 5 to close the series.
If anyone knew how to push the right buttons, it was Popovich. Educating the room on Eddie Mabo wasn't a sneaky ploy to get Mills motivated because he needed his production in the Finals; it was his special way of bringing basketball and backgrounds together putting everything in perspective while also instilling the utmost confidence in his players.
For Patty, he went on to say how shocked and impressed he was that Pop used that high-leverage moment for education rather than purely basketball.
"For the indigenous people, he put indigenous Australians on the map with land rights and what he was able to overturn. And in my head he's asking and I'm like 'There's no way he's asking this right now this was supposed to be about LeBron James and the Miami Heat. And he proceeds to go on a 10-15 minute education story about who Eddie Mabo is and what he meant to not only indigenous Australians but all of Australia," Patty revealed.
"That sums up Pop. This thing is much bigger than basketball. I walked out of there shaking my head, even now, thinking about it brings tears to my eyes because it unlocked something in me. That was an example of how much he cared about his players and how much he wanted his players to be great human beings," Mills concluded.
Clearly, this wasn't the first time Pop had displayed a vested interest in his players' culture either. There are countless stories of the Hall of Famer diving deep into the upbringing of Tony Parker , Manu Ginobili and Tiago Splitter , just to name a few.
It proves that the aura and hype around playing under him wasn't for show. Pop genuinely cared about his players, not just from a basketball perspective - but in life. He made it his mission to learn who they were, where they came from, the family they had back home, and what the game meant to them.
Much like there will never be another LeBron, Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant , the same can be said about Popovich on the sidelines and Mills would attest to that more than anyone.
This story was originally published by Basketball Network on Feb 15, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
