
“Massive,” Mills says, when asked if Simmons’ full-throttled involvement with the Boomers could lift the program’s national standing. “You’re not gonna deny his involvement would not only reach a goal for the playing group of a gold medal, but the overall stature of the program; there’s no doubt about it. This is where it’s more of a group effort to be able to build our program to a point where someone like Ben Simmons, who’s our first ever Australian NBA All-Star, says, ‘heck yeah … I wanna be back there, whether I’m injured or this or that or whatever; I wanna be part of that’.โ