The announcement of veteran NBA guard Patty Mills as general manager of the Hawaii men’s basketball program follows a national trend in rapidly evolving college athletics.

Increasingly among the power conferences and even at mid-majors like UH, these newly tapped GMs can fulfill one or more of a variety of roles in the Name, Image and Likeness and revenue sharing era — roster builder, contract negotiator, fundraiser, player developer, brand ambassador, director of operations — as determined by a program’s needs but also the person’s inherent skill set.

Shaquille O’Neal became GM of Sacramento State in April. Stephen Curry is an assistant GM with Davidson. Former ESPN basketball reporter Adrian Wojnarowski left to become the GM at his alma mater St. Bonaventure.

Even former UH head coach Gib Arnold is now the GM and director of mental performance for Washington.

In Mills, the Rainbow Warriors gained a renowned teammate and locker room presence who spoke repeatedly Monday of a tight cultural fit with the program despite not having played for it.

The five-time Olympian is an indigenous Australian with roots in the Torres Strait Islands. He and his wife, Alyssa, were married at Waimea Bay in 2019 and he has spent many of his 16 NBA offseasons on Oahu to train.

As many power programs have allocated money for a GM position, some mid-majors have brought people in on a voluntary basis given their leaner budgets. Such was the case with UH and Mills.

“It’s a true honor to step into this role and I definitely don’t take it lightly,” Mills, the MVP of the 2007 Rainbow Classic with Saint Mary’s College, said in a video call with Hawaii media.

“When it comes to all the things culturally and spiritually for me and connections with my upbringing, there are a lot of similarities there (with Hawaii) and I feel like it’s a joining of the seas that’s a part of me already.”

What exactly Mills will do in the GM role remains to be seen. He is still an active pro with the Los Angeles Clippers and doesn’t project to be on island for much of the year. He and Alyssa await the birth of their first child in August.

But he pledged to tap into his experience with his national team, as well as time spent with the Portland Trail Blazers, San Antonio Spurs, Brooklyn Nets, Atlanta Falcons, Miami Heat, Utah Jazz and Clippers. He was eager to seek advice from legendary Spurs head man Gregg Popovich, he said.

He and UH coach Eran Ganot go back to a shared history at SMC in Moraga, Calif., where Mills was a standout player and Ganot had two stints on Randy Bennett’s coaching staff, though they didn’t directly overlap.

While he has loosely supported UH over Ganot’s decade-plus tenure since 2015 — appearing at Rainbow Warrior summer keiki camps and community events and sponsoring the Patty Mills North Shore Classic tournament in 2022 — the GM announcement “legitimizes” the connection, Mills said several times Monday.

He said he would do his part to grow the game broadly in Hawaii and the UH program in particular.

Ganot was effusive in his praise for Mills as he went about Day 1 of his annual keiki camp. He called Mills “as good a human being as you could possibly be around, and to have that around your student-athletes is special.”

The coach said his phone was “blowing up” about the move. He said Mills would support the program from afar while he is away and be a resource for his players while on-island.

Of the timing of adding Mills, Ganot said, “We’ve always talked about ideas, and then at the same time what’s going on in the landscape of college athletics,” Ganot said. “It just kind of naturally happened and here we are. It’s a great day, it’s a great moment.”

He joins the program at a challenging time in the Ganot era. UH is coming off a 15-16 season that ended with the program’s first missed conference tournament since 2010. Attendance has flagged noticeably. Ganot enters the final year of his contract in the 2025-26 season, UH’s last in the Big West before it jumps to a higher-tiered college hoops conference in the Mountain West, where at least one program it will see, Wyoming, has a GM.

“Yeah, exactly right mate,” Mills said to a question about stepping in to help in a time of need. “You talk about being in the trenches together, through the good times and the bad times. It’s being able to have the strength of community … to come out of it. The stars aligned, the timing aligned, the situation is what it is.

“Coach Ganot definitely has the same mindset that I have as a player in that approach and preparation to the game. It’s fun, it’s definitely going to be a challenge. But if you’re able to stick together … it’s definitely worth it when you’re finally able to get over the hump.”

UH nearly finished reconstructing roster

Ganot and his staff have made considerable progress in building their 2025-26 roster nearly from scratch.

The ‘Bows have officially signed eight players. There are five Division I transfers: guard Dre Bullock, 6-foot-6 guard from South Carolina; Tanner Cuff, 6-7 guard from Evansville; Hunter Erickson, 6-3 guard from Utah; Jalen Myers, 6-8 forward from Norfolk State; and Isaac Johnson, 7-foot center from Utah State.

Isaiah Kerr, a 6-3 guard from Division II Chico State and 6-7 forward Isaac Finlinson, the junior college national player of the year at Snow College, are the team’s other pickups.

Seton Hall 6-10 big man Yacine Toumi has committed to UH as well, per reports.

It is believed that UH has one scholarship left to offer for the upcoming season, putting it well ahead of its progress at this time last year. There are three holdovers on scholarship — point guard Aaron Hunkin-Claytor, guard A.J. Economou and forward Harry Rouhliadeff.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.