The Boomers' preparation for next month's Beijing Olympics will intensify on Tuesday when $75 million man Andrew Bogut joins his national team-mates in an eight-day training camp on the Gold Coast.
Helping Bogut, a former NBA No.1 draft pick who signed a new five-year deal with the Milwaukee Bucks last week, adjust to the Boomers set-up will be high on the priorities for coach Brian Goorjian during the camp.
Bogut will be an invaluable addition to the Boomers, who arrived back in the country during the weekend after mixed results in the Acropolis Tournament in Greece.
The Boomers finished the tournament with a five-point victory over Brazil but were pounded by Greece and lost narrowly to Croatia in their opening two matches of the event.
Goorjian said Bogut, Russian-based star David Andersen and Matt Nielsen, who plays in Lithuania, were crucial to the Boomers' hopes of punching above their weight and snaring a medal in Beijing.
"We're clearly under the bar without them. We're going to need them in order to get what we want out of the Olympics. That was always going to be the challenge," Goorjian said.
"There's no surprises and I think we've moved along quite nicely by playing those games in Europe, games in Australia and just adding the one player and that's Bogut."
"How we use him and how he blends is still a challenge. But it was always going to be the way."
The Boomers have been drawn alongside reigning Olympic gold medallist Argentina, Asian champions Iran, European champions Russia, Lithuania and a still unknown team for the Beijing games.
The Australians have a stronger team in Beijing than it did in Athens when it failed to progress past the group stage, Goorjian said, but the quality of international competition had also improved in the past four years.
"To medal you're going to have to come out of your pool and win a couple more games after that," Goorjian said.
"We've got a real challenge to beat one of those European teams to get out of our pool and if we do that and finish fourth or third you end up playing the USA in a first-round knockout."
"I'm quietly confident we can move forward and do something special."
The Boomers will play China and Angola and one other nation in the four-day FIBA Diamond Ball in Nanjing starting on July 29 before tackling Team USA in Shanghai on August 5.