With all due respect to the pioneers of the Andrew Gaze/Luc Longley/Shane Heal era, the Australian men's basketball squad has never had such talent at its disposal.

On the back of Patty Mills and Aron Baynes winning a championship last year with San Antonio, veteran centre Andrew Bogut will suit up in the NBA finals with Golden State against another Boomer in Cleveland guard Matthew Dellavedova.

Boom times indeed.

The Games of the 31st Olympiad in Rio de Janeiro are less than 15 months away. This has been said/written/hypothesised before previous doomed trips to the big events but this will be the Boomers' best chance to finally secure a medal at a major tournament.

As is usually the case with the Boomers, there aren't many opportunities for the top squad to play together outside of a World Cup or Olympic Games.

Australia's record seven NBA players - Bogut, Dellavedova, Mills, Baynes, Chicago tall timber Cameron Bairstow and Utah pair Dante Exum and Joe Ingles - have Rio in their sights. Throw in Brock Motum, who was a couple of days away from suiting up with the Jazz this season, and that's eight squad positions pretty much taken straight from the get-go.

That leaves former NBA big men David Andersen and Nate Jawai, Besiktas sharp shooter Ryan Broekhoff, and Boomers stalwarts Brad Newley, Aleks Maric and Adam Gibson among the seasoned campaigners fighting it out for the remaining four positions.

The wild cards for coach Andrej Lemanis are the young guns - talents like Ben Simmons, Thon Maker, Hugh Greenwood, Jordan Vandenberg and Chris Goulding. They don't have the experience at international level but each could offer a specific skill for Lemanis to stash at the end of the bench.

Lemanis showed with Exum at last year's World Cup that he will not throw a young player into the fray unless he thinks they're ready. Simmons, who will line up with Louisiana State University after he was rated the No.1 player in the US high school ranks, is an undeniable talent. 

Simmons won't play for the Boomers in their Olympic qualifiers against New Zealand in Melbourne and Wellington in August so he can prepare for his rookie season with LSU.

Ingles will also sit out the two-game series with the Tall Blacks because he needs a break after a full-on schedule over the past few years which culminated in a 79-game rookie NBA season in Salt Lake City.

Of course, realistically there will only be two medals up for grabs in Brazil unless Team USA somehow goes off the rails in a major way.

And while the Boomers are building momentum, let's not forget they crashed out in the round of 16 at last year's World Cup in Spain after somehow* drawing the tough Turkey team.

(* denotes they tanked it to avoid a match-up with the US in the quarter-finals and it back-fired).

(** Who could blame them for deliberately losing to Angola to get away from Team USA? Other countries have been doing it for years. They call it strategy.)

(*** Yes, the Boomers were eventually cleared by FIBA but ... you know.)

Also, Australia is not the only country with a sudden influx of NBA-calibre players. Canada has also enjoyed a sharp spike in recent years, headlined by last year's No.1 draft pick Andrew Wiggins, while Spain, France, Lithuania, Slovenia and Serbia will expect to set foot on the podium in Rio.

Much will depend on Bogut. He wants to play in Rio after missing a lot of Boomers action in recent years due to injuries and the need to be in top shape for the rigours of the NBA season. He won't be Australia's main scorer but he'll be our main man. If he can bring his All-NBA Second Team defence to Brazil, work hard as usual on the boards and set screens like he does for Golden State's outside marksmen, the likes of Mills, Ingles, Dellavedova, Motum and Broekhoff will see plenty of open looks.

The ingredients are there. There's still a long way to go but this crop of players can be forever known as Australia's golden generation if they can return home from Rio with any of the three varieties of shiny objects around their neck.