Lauren Jackson appears on track for a highly-anticipated return to the WNBL for next season - the question on everyone's lips though, is which team will she play for?
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Not since an injury-hit 2014-15 season with the Capitals has Jackson played in the WNBL, but her incredible return to the national team just in time for the FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup next month in Sydney has every WNBL team lining up to sign her.
Two Opals legends believe the Capitals have a strong shot at securing the four-time WNBL MVP who has most recently been playing with the Albury-Wodonga Bandits in the semi-professional NBL1 East.
"Canberra has been her life," former Opals teammate Kristi Harrower said of the speculation at the NBA Basketball Without Borders Asia camp at the AIS.
"It's going to be interesting to see where she goes. I think it's going to be Canberra or the Southside Flyers."
Capitals director Carrie Graf told The Canberra Times this week that they were "not sure" if Jackson was interested in playing in the WNBL after the World Cup, but revealed the "conversation has been floated" about a Canberra comeback.
The Capitals said they were willing to be patient and wait on Jackson to make that call after the World Cup.
Another ex-Opals teammate Jenni Screen believes Canberra would be a good fit for Jackson, if logistically she could make it work with a young family.
"She played for a very long time here, and won a lot of championships here with Carrie Graf," Screen said.
"It depends what she needs, but I'll put money on it that you'll see her in the WNBL in this 2022-23 season."
For new mum Screen, 39, the thought returning to basketball like 41-year-old Jackson has couldn't be farther from her priorities, but she was full of admiration for the hall of famer.
"Hell no I couldn't do what she's done," Screen said. "She's a legend here, and a legend everywhere, all over the world.
"She retired eight years ago, has now come full circle, had a great team around her to support her, and now her two little boys get the opportunity to see their mum run out on the world stage yet again, doing something that she dominated."
After a disappointing quarter-finals exit from the Tokyo Olympics, Jackson will give the Opals a major boost on and off the court and help their ascent back to the top of women's basketball.
"The Australian team was feared back when I played [with Jackson]," Harrower said.
"It's changed a little bit since my generation. I was quite lucky to go through with the people that I did and be so successful. We built a great culture in the Opals program but they haven't been as successful over the last few campaigns, like the last two Olympics.
"What they had to go through last year for the Olympics, I don't think a lot of us realised the bad publicity with Liz [Cambage] and what happened, we more focused on that and didn't realise what the team had to go through individually and as a team.
"It wasn't until this year when the video came out that I realised that would've been really tough on the team."
The withdrawal by Liz Cambage from the Opals days before the Games, and the subsequent controversy surrounding their star player was a less than ideal build up.
But now a more united Opals group has put that chapter in the rear view mirror, and Jackson emerges as the perfect captain to steady the ship.
"She's going to raise the level of the Opals and mark my words, there'll be countries that don't want to play against Lauren, even at 41," Screen said. "When that girl steps on the court, she is a fierce competitor.
"It's 'Liz Who?' right now. That's old news. We're playing a World Cup on home soil for the first time in over 20 years, one of the greatest to ever play the game is returning to green and gold after a retirement that she didn't want. That's the story.
"The story is can our Opals get on the podium and do what they've always done? Silver in Spain four years ago, why can't we do that again? I hope we can and I'll be supporting them all the way like the rest of Australia."
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