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Patrick Mills is as quick as anyone in this draft and is a deadly scorer, but will his glaring limitations reduce him to a gadget player?

Let’s first get through the good because there is a fair amount of it.

His baseline to baseline speed is truly incredible and when he runs the point guard position, he puts a ton of pressure on opposing defenses in early offense.

As quick as Mills is with his foot speed, he also an extremely quick release to his perimeter jumper. This allows him to shoot over bigger defenders, which is unsurpsingly the norm for Mills at 6’0”. He has a compact, smooth stroke with good lift on his jumper and his range extends to well beyond the 3-point line.

In a sense, because of the quickness, Mills is similar to Tony Parker, except with a better perimeter shot.

Except Mills cannot really score in the paint off the dribble. Mills can create little 15-footers off the dribble, outquicking his man from the perimeter, whether he uses a shot fake or not. But he doesn’t have the lift or savvy to go much further. Comparing his vertical to Jonny Flynn, the Syracuse guard has him by seven full inches, though somehow Jrue Holiday only has him beat by one.

If Mills can master the midrange jumper, then he might be able to get away without ever scoring in the paint, but that is a big if. His 3-point shot must always be contested and he will therefore have enough explosion to get past his defender for the 15-20-footer. Mills has an excellent shot, but still needs to find true consistency with it.

Mills is an average passer and largely played off the ball while at St. Mary’s. He is occasionally creative with his passes, but his delivery isn’t sharp and he doesn’t really make his teammates better the way good point guards do.

Defensively, Mills needs to do a better job of using his lateral quickness to his advantage. He moves his feet quickly and uses his body to stay in front of quick ballhandlers, but he takes a lot of gambles by reaching.

He plays fairly good help defense, but his help defense won’t exactly stop the big wings from storming down the lane.

His lack of size and strength will create as many matchup problems defensively as he might create on the offensive end.

The rule changes ultimately will allow Mills to be effective in the NBA. The lack of physicality on both ends suits his game and he probably wouldn’t even be in the league in the Derek Harper handcheck era. The NBA has seen small players like Nate Robinson and Aaron Brooks become successful, so will soon see if a less athletic yet better shooting Mills can join them.