San Antonio Spurs: It's time to talk about Patty Mills

Like all of the San Antonio Spurs, Patty Mills is exhausted

What's the first thing you imagine when you picture a productive Patty Mills on offense? Is it frantically running around screens to get open and burying quick-release threes? Because that's Mills at his finest. Unfortunately, that's hard to keep up when you never have more than 24 hours for your body to recover for weeks on end.

Project Spurs writer Paul Garcia recently shared an insightful look at the wear and tear the compacted season is having on Patty Mills:

The chart shows how Mills has slowed down literally and figuratively as the season has gone on. While he was running an average of two miles in a given game early in the season, that's now been cut by about 25 percent in May.

I'm sure if you did a similar graph of most players in the NBA, they'd likely slow down a bit as the season wore on, even with a regular schedule. What makes this data important here, though, is how crucial speed and quickness are to Patty's game.

At 6-1, Patty is a nightmare to hang with on the perimeter when he has his wheels running. Unfortunately, those wheels have been overworked due to circumstances beyond his control.

Can we blame all of Patty's struggles on fatigue? Of course not. He's had numerous wide-open shots he's just flat-out missing. But there's no doubt that sucking the energy out of a guy that thrives off of it is going to greatly affect their play. So what should the Spurs do about it?