Looking at the season schedule on paper, in theory, it does not look like a great time for a national team — like the Boomers — to have World Cup qualifiers.
Australia's best domestic talent is preparing for the NBL finals and an even better stock of Boomers squad members are in the United States, contracted to the coveted NBA.
But it did not make a difference for the Boomers last weekend against Bahrain and Kazakhstan in Melbourne, with convincing double-digit wins against both sides in their World Cup qualifying games.
Australia had already earned a place in August's FIBA Basketball World Cup in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia, but top seeding was still on the line in these final Asian qualifiers.
ESPN basketball journalist Olgun Uluc said selectors put up a squad of "fringe" Boomers players, who still passed the grade.
"A bunch of guys who you'd consider mid- to top-end NBL players and even fringe Boomers when it comes to those major tournaments," he said.
We are talking about the likes of Perth veteran Todd Blanchfield and Melbourne United's Isaac Humphries, who still put on an impressive show in the 32-point win over Bahrain and 45-point victory over Kazakhstan.
"The actual team that gets sent to the World Cup and that gets sent to the Olympics and those major tournaments, they [will] look almost entirely different to the ones that we see in these qualifying games," Uluc said.
So if this is not our World Cup or Olympic squad, it raises the question: should fans be expecting World Cup glory later this year? Or even better, Olympic gold in Paris 2024?
And what about when it comes to who is missing?
"It's practically the entirety of the [Australian] talent," Uluc said.
Big NBA names
Let us start with veteran Patty Mills, who has recently been pushed out of rotation on the Brooklyn Nets' roster in the NBA.
"Patty isn't getting the run that he perhaps feels he deserves [with the Nets] but I guess by the same token, he's getting a tonne of rest," Uluc said.
The ABC recently spoke with Mills from the Nets' training facility in Brooklyn. He is looking forward to two NBA off-seasons, with the World Cup and Olympics on the horizon.
"The Olympics is the Olympics and anytime conversations come up, I'm eager to get back and get the crew back together, and get the green and gold on," Mills said.
Mills led the Boomers to their first Olympic medal — a bronze — at the Tokyo Games in 2021 and said he was looking forward to getting younger players involved in the "gold vibes only" mantra.
"No question that that's never going to change for us, the quest for a gold medal and what those small but powerful words mean to us," he said.
"The culture that we've been able to really cement now … to be able to carry this on to the World Cup to Paris, and then to the Olympics down the road is going to be the most important thing."
The Boomers have been strengthened on paper since breaking the Olympic medal drought with Josh Giddey, Dyson Daniels, Josh Green and Jock Landale all making themselves known in the NBA.
New kid on the block
Giddey — who plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder — is potentially the best player to emerge for the Boomers since the Tokyo Olympics.
"During that Olympic campaign, he got drafted [to the NBA] and he was sort of a young guy and they didn't feel he was ready," Uluc said.
"But I think from what he's shown in the NBA, he's clearly ready."
Giddey has even earned the praise of the NBA's all-time leading points scorer, LeBron James.
"He's a triple-double type of playmaker every single night because of his ability to rebound at his size, his instinctive passing, and he has the ability to score in the paint," James said last month.
James added: "I think he's going to continue to get better and better."
Daniels can be added to the mix of potential Boomers squad members, while Green — who played in Tokyo — has found his feet with the Dallas Mavericks.
Joe Ingles is healthy again, while names like Matisse Thybulle and Ben Simmons could even be floated around.
Uluc said it spoke volumes about the current talent pool in Australia that Simmons might not even make the grade in his current condition.
'He's the guy who's going to make $80 million over the next two-and-a-bit years and he's just not performing at that level," Uluc said.
"There's an element of his back injury, which has played a big part in his game diminishing."
Australia's talent ID spot-on
Basketball commentator Tom Hersz said the fact the Boomers could choose from an array of international-calibre players highlighted the depth of Australian men's basketball.
"I think it's partly to do with the way the sport has grown over Australia, but we have a different development pathway … to what goes on in the US," Hersz said.
As opposed to the high school and college-based systems in the US, Australian pathways are much more club-focused.
"It's really easy for talent to be identified early on, and then for that talent to get work with as kids get older and progressed," Hersz said.
Both Uluc and Hersz think it is not a stretch for Australian fans to get their hopes up over the next 18 months.
"[Players] Went to Tokyo aiming for a gold medal, even though they've never won a medal before … but that's going to be their mentality going into every one of these tournaments," Hersz said.
Uluc said Australia now boasted top-level NBA talent and Mills's leadership could help them "flip a switch" when it came to World Cup or Olympic campaigns.
"I think the Boomers are every chance to be in those medal races again," he said.
