How Patty Mills is helping Indigenous Canberrans get into basketball

Mills' Indigenous Basketball Australia has signed a memorandum of understanding with Basketball ACT, meaning the two organisations will now work together to promote the game within the capital's Indigenous community.

Basketball ACT chief executive David Simpson said Mills would be a deserving recipient of one of Australia's highest gongs.

"He'd be a fantastic Australian of the Year. You just have to look at all the hype around him and how much of an influence he's having on the Australian culture - and the basketball community obviously," he said.

MORE CANBERRA SPORT

Simpson said it would be a two-way relationship between BACT and IBA, with both parties helping each other.

Mills set up IBA a year ago with the goal of encouraging Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders get into the game he loves.

Simpson said they were also on board making that happen and they'd look to help with creating Indigenous competitions, just as Mills has previously done with the Indigenous Community Basketball League.

He was excited by the prospect of working with Mills' organisation.

"We'll look at how we can create some real opportunities and enhance our opportunities for our Indigenous community - try and alleviate some of the barriers to participation, getting into coaching, officiating and the like by working with IBA to make sure everything we do is culturally sensitive and we're not putting any barriers in place to people of Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander background coming into basketball," Simpson said.

"We'll work with Indigenous Basketball Australia on some Indigenous specific competitions, so linking up with the IBA competition structure as well.

"At the moment it's working out where we can add value and where Indigenous Basketball [Australia] can add value to the work we're doing - it's a real partnership approach."