Patience Preached in Perth Roster Build

Perth Wildcats shot-caller Danny Mills has preached patience during the club’s hunt for a pair of new imports ahead of NBL24, and says expects the club to be primed to reveal any new signings by “early August”.

Mills – who has been the Wildcats’ General Manager of Basketball Operations for two years – recently attended the NBA Summer League alongside head coach John Rillie, who was acting as a guest coach for the New York Knicks during the event.

Perth made a splash early in free agency with the signing of back-to-back Most Improved Player Keanu Pinder, but are still looking for two imports to play alongside Bryce Cotton.

<iframe src="https://omny.fm/shows/nbl-podcasts/danny-mills-on-sen-july-18-2023/embed?style=artwork" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write" width="100%" height="180" frameborder="0" title="Danny Mills on SEN - July 18, 2023"></iframe>

Mills believes the post-Summer League period is a crucial time to participate in signing discussions for top level talent.

“It’s obviously a really busy time and the market is really turning out since Summer League has just finished,” Mills told SEN. “. There’s a lot of players that start to realise that guaranteed NBA deal or two-way contract they were hoping to get finalised isn’t there and they start turning their attention to the best overseas options they have.

“We truly believe we’re definitely in that space, so things start to heat up around now.

“We’ve been in some really, really exciting players and prospects we would love to see in a Wildcats uniform. At the moment we’re still in quite a few of them and we’ve got two import spots to sign. A lot of work goes into it now.

“I think I’d be doing myself and the club a disservice if we put a timeline on it … we’d love to get something across the line sooner rather than later. These are two very important pieces to finish the roster.

“We’d be hoping by the latest to be looking to early August for there to be announcements, but it could be sooner as well.”

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Day two of Summer League action is complete ??<br><br>The <a href="https://twitter.com/NBL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nbl</a>’s Pete Hooley caught up with Perth Wildcats General Manager of Basketball Danny Mills to chat NBL24 recruitment, what Wildcats fans can expect from Alex Sarr and Ben Henshall’s rapid rise. Take a listen ? <a href="https://t.co/YHum9HyjEt">pic.twitter.com/YHum9HyjEt</a></p>&mdash; Perth Wildcats (@PerthWildcats) <a href="https://twitter.com/PerthWildcats/status/1677986308243996672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 9, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Perth will be travelling to the United States during their pre-season, but not for the traditional NBLxNBA games they have participated in in the past.

The Wildcats last travelled to America in 2018 in a trip that included an eight-point loss to current NBA champions Denver, in a game that Bryce Cotton, Nick Kay and Jesse Wagstaff particularly impressed.

They will instead be taking on the NBA G-League Ignite in the inaugural G-League Fall Invitational.

“Talks started happening for us to bring the program outside of Australia which is something we’ve been trying to do for a year and a bit – to put a global stamp on the Wildcats brand,” Mills said.

“For us to be able to play the G-League Ignite in Vegas after what Metropolitans 92 did over there – the French team that brought over Victor (Wembanyama) – it ticks boxes in that wewanted to expand our pre-season schedule overseas.

“The G-League Ignite team is loaded this year. It’s arguably the best group of talent they’ve assembled yet. They’ve got possibly the top two picks in the draft and five first round projections.”

Perth’s NBL24 campaign will begin on Friday, September 29 against Tasmania.