SAN ANTONIO — Patty Mills has played a significant role in the San Antonio Spurs 18-4 start this season, so it’s hard to recall the time when his status with the team was in limbo.
He had become—in the words of the only person who really matters when it comes to playing for the Spurs—“a little fat ass.”
That was in the aftermath of the Spurs’ crushing loss to the Miami Heat in The 2013 NBA Finals. Mills played only two games in that series before Gregg Popovich, author of the insult, lost him for the final four contests because of a foot infection that had developed into a painful abscess.