Basketball On The Internet.

BASKETBALL Australia's office minions should form a guard-of-honor, take off their collective feather headresses and bow to Patty Mills for the (free) leg work he is doing for next month's Oceania Series.

After the public relations faux pas that was "This time last week....", the leading scorer at the 2012 Olympic Games - maintaining a tradition begun by Eddie Palubinskas and continued by Ian Davies and Andrew Gaze (putting Patty again in fairly rare air) - has today been firing up on Twitter ahead of the showdown with the cross-Tasman rival New Zealand.

First, the San Antonio Spurs fan favorite posed the question: "Just making sure but is everyone back home aware of the Boomers and Opals double header against New Zealand in Canberra coming up???"

Good question, it seems. Judging by fan reaction, not as many are aware as should be. (So much for that extensive ad campaign!!)

He answered it with the date - 18th of August - and the venue, AIS Arena, "The Palace".

"Trying to pump this game up as much as we can so we can pack The Palace that night!" he tweeted.

Well thank goodness someone is ahead of the game, given it's less than three weeks away.

"This team is only together a few weeks out of the year. So when we do play, it's kind of special to all us. Would LOVE to get everyone along"

At this point, as one of his Twitter followers, I am reminded again just what a precious ambassador Patrick Mills remains for Australian basketball, regardless of where he is playing.

But this, which included a photograph, really had me shaking my head in admiration: "It would be amazing if we could pack the arena out like the Canberra Cannons use to do in the 80s and 90s!

"I remember going to games at the AIS Arena as a kid and learning about Herb McEachin, Phil Smyth and Tad Dufelmeier and thinking to myself...

"...I want to play in front of a crowd like this! Getting excited just tweeting all this!! Anyway hope we can get some support behind it"

All lovers of our national teams should want that, the chance to see Mills, Ingles, Dellavedova, Newley, Andersen - we know these guys so well, they don't even need their full names spelt out.

But how often can we see them in action together?

Within days, BA will announce the double-header with the Opals-Tall Ferns will be on live free-to-air TV and what would be better than a full house at The Palace?

Well, Patty comes up trumps on that too, clearly recalling the sea of yellow T-shirts at many of the venues (Golden State Warriors, Indiana Pacers) during the NBA Finals.

"Oh just thought of an idea! What if we packed out the arena AND has a green or gold out. Everyone with free shirts and a sea of gold" he tweeted.

Yes indeed. What could be better for the team, the TV product and the sport than a full house in Canberra? That full house of fans walking in to find a yellow T-shirt supporting the Opals/Boomers on every seat-back in the venue.

Imagine that, a souvenir from the game to compensate for the ridiculous high pricing AND one which would look superb on TV with an audience of Boomers/Opals maniacs in a "sea of yellow".

Patrick Mills has thrown out the idea.

BA has plenty of time to investigate it, cost it and get it done.

The ball is back in their court.

HAS Lauren Jackson almost outgrown the WNBL?

Think about that for a second, bearing in mind she has a record of individual and team success unparallelled in women's basketball all over the world.

There has been a long period in Lozza's career when she was without argument the No.1 woman basketball player in the world.

Your chances of cashing in on that well-deserved notoriety is limited, especially as you pass the dreaded 30-year age-plateau. Don't forget too, an athlete's prime years of earning capacity are limited and disappear very quickly.

Throw in a lost year nursing your way back from hamstring surgery and today's revelations LJ will be playing overseas this southern summer should not be a huge surprise.

BA throwing in money to keep Lauren playing in our league has always (rightly) wrankled rival clubs not being afforded the same luxury as Canberra. But the price of a marquee name such as Jackson is high.

Today's contract "wrangle" looks more like LJ had a better offer and needed to take it.

Which brings me back to the start. Other than at the very tail end of her career, has Jackson outgrown playing in the WNBL in terms of what she can earn internationally?

Try this. Would Andrew Bogut be too big for our NBL right now?

Easy answer, right?

Of course he is. But while Bogut is a bona fide NBA star and a No.1 draft pick, he could never (and would never) lay claim to being the best player in his sport in the world.

That was/is Lauren Jackson's status. Should we really be surprised if she's going overseas?

MORE fabulous news up Townsville way with the Crocodiles yesterday unveiling Mike Kelly as Shawn Dennis' assistant coach of the recovering NBL franchise.

Kelly was a hard working defensive specialist with great range who spent five of his 13 years at the Crocodiles - including their only trip to the Grand Final in 2001 - after first coming to Australia as an import before naturalising.

He has been learning the coaching game as an assistant in the US.

But can we just get a little bit of clarification? Despite the "Townsville Bulletin" report saying: "Kelly was player-coach in his final season with the Wollongong Hawks" that is extremely misleading.

Brendan Joyce was coach of the Hawks while Kelly was there, so Mike was never "player-coach". Testing my memory here but I recall Kelly played and, as a veteran, also had a role in the coaching staff as an assistant.

Good to see the revived NBL website didn't repeat the same misleading error.

Oh. Wait...

IDEA! Why don't BA put the money they will save on Lauren Jackson playing overseas instead of in the WNBL, into yellow T-shirts for all the fans at the Oceania Series games in Canberra?

BARON Davis ... Yeah. That's all I've got.

(Used up my last available brain cell on the previous idea...)