Patty Mills on Ben Simmons: ‘I’ve got his back. I’ve always had his back’

Throughout the history of the game, when an athlete returns to the game of basketball after an extended period of absence, it can be a difficult adjustment. An adjustment that will often end in mixed results. Ben Simmons is that athlete. He’s entering the next chapter of his career in Brooklyn knowing he has someone, a fellow Aussie, who has had his back from the beginning.

The newest Net star joins a Nets organization filled with connections to the Land Down Under. In fact, the newest Net’s relationship with Patty Mills can be traced all the way back to Australia when Mills was a youngster. The Nets veteran guard has known Simmons’s family since he was a kid and has watched the three-time…