Though acknowledging the end is in sight, Joe Ingles says "you're going to have to kill me" to prevent the Boomer making a fifth Olympics appearance.
Licking the wounds of a second-round Basketball World Cup exit in Japan, the 35-year-old has pinned his ears back for another golden tilt in Paris in less than a year.
Ingles, alongside Patty Mills, represents the beating heart of an Australian men's side that won a maiden bronze in Tokyo two years ago to end decades of despair.
A record nine NBA players were on the Boomers' World Cup roster, and centre Jock Landale was not among them due to an ankle injury suffered on tournament eve.
That meant Ingles played a different role as a power forward, despite establishing himself as a calm playmaker and three-point marksman over the past 10 years in the NBA and in Europe before that.
His numbers took a hit as a result. Ingles took just 22 three-point attempts in five Cup games and made seven of them.
He was scoreless in a costly loss to Slovenia, took just three shots against Germany in a round-one defeat, and finished on Sunday with 10 points, six assists and five rebounds in a consolation defeat of Georgia.
Coach Brian Goorjian made big calls to cut fellow veterans Matthew Dellavedova and Aron Baynes ahead of the World Cup.
Twenty-year-olds Josh Giddey and Dyson Daniels, as well as 22-year-old Josh Green and fit-again Dante Exum, 28, will power the next generation in Paris.
But Ingles, a mentor of Giddey's, wants to be there too and is adamant he can play a part as the Boomers hunt gold.
"It's a great group of guys," he said. "You're going to have to kill me before you get me out of here."
The South Australian will play a veteran role at Orlando next season after successfully returning from an ACL tear in a cameo with Milwaukee this year.
Goorjian said the side's style had changed to accommodate a crop he thinks has the highest ceiling in world basketball.
With Landale a certainty if healthy, and Ben Simmons another option to return - the fit-again NBA All-Star says he wants to play in Paris - it leaves the coach with major decisions to make.
"There's some holes in this. We need another big and a couple more shooters in our group," Goorjian said.
"The picture's clear and I didn't think we were that far off it (at the World Cup).
"We've got the group ... that has the most potential to grow."
