It was apparent when coach Brian Goorjian was asked about coming up against Melbourne United duo Matthew Dellevadova and Chris Goulding this Sunday.

"As fierce as these rivalries are, every time I come to the floor and I see one of those guys off the Boomers, there's a warmth there," he said.

"Cooky (Xavier Cooks) really wanted it bad, we wanted it bad [on Thursday], but after the game's over it's all gold vibes. It's the same when I see Delly, Goulding, it was just very special and it's lifelong.

"You do anything you can to beat them but there's a warmth there. You have it with [Nathan] Sobey, all those guys, it's just really, really special."

It clearly didn't subside at the conclusion of the games. Skipper Mills wrote himself into basketball and Aussie Olympic folklore with his 42 points in the bronze-medal playoff against Slovenia.

Having signed with the Brooklyn Nets pre-Games after a decade in San Antonio, Mills is averaging 13 points a game from the bench and posted a career-high 34 points on Boxing Day, all at 33 and in his 13th year as a pro.

Mattise Thybulle has credited 'gold vibes' for making him a key piece for Philadelphia and Josh Giddey... well... enough said.

'Gold vibes only' was the constant refrain long before Tokyo, driven by NBA veterans Mills and Andrew Bogut who brought a mentality and standard that took them to championship rings.

Having coached the national team through a transitory phase over the Athens and Beijing Games, it was a fortuitous twist of fate that saw Goorjian return to the fold after Brett Brown relinquished the role before even stepping into it.

Making a concerted effort to simply observe over the opening days of his first training camp, Goorjian said the shift was profound.

"When I was involved with the Boomers [the first time] and we went and played Team USA in Beijing, some of the guys were getting autographs in the hallway," Goorjian said.

"Now the mentality is to beat them. They're not intimidated, there's a different feel. It's not only a skill package, it's a mentality."

For that shift, the power of optics can't be underestimated. While Luc Longley was the first Australian to play in the NBA, winning three championships with Michael Jordan's iconic Chicago Bulls, he did it with a level of anonymity in his home country that's impossible to fathom now.

Chris Anstey was the 18th pick in the 1997 NBA Draft after playing under Goorjian in South East Melbourne's championship-winning 1996 season. That too received little mainstream attention.

Now, the likes of Mills, Joe Ingles, and before that Bogut, have been all over our televisions - or more to the point, all over our streaming apps. In that mix, Goorjian feels Australian traits are becoming prized.

"You go back and you compare, there wasn't really anyone you could aspire to," Goorjian said.

"You didn't have the internet, it was a closed shop. Now there's much more respect from an NBA stand-point on the characteristics of an Australian and what they can bring.

"There's no doubt in my mind that, if they were in this era, an Andrew Gaze, a Shane Heal, a [Andrew] Vlahov, Mark Bradtke would be doing what these guys are doing.

"I always thought if they got a proper opportunity they could go.

"Now, guys like Andrew Bogut, [Aaron] Baynes, Mills have opened the door. Giddey's like the kid next door, so there's guys who look at it and say 'I could do that'.

"From an Australian stand-point there's a mentality and a growth that they want to go over there and they feel confident."

That being said, Olympic Bronze shapes as the biggest game-changer for the game in this country. Australians, largely locked down due to COVID, watched and engaged with the Olympics to the largest degree since Sydney in 2000.

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In terms of mainstream hearts and minds, the primacy of the Games transcends the ebbs and flows of the NBL and, to a large degree, Aussie success on the NBA stage.

It seemed a new beginning for the game, but Bronze was more a culmination, the closing of a chapter. Goorjian feels the true impact will emerge in those that follow.

"I used to always say that Australia did the greatest marketing job of all time in Australian Rules Football and driving the fact that it's Australian-only," Goorjian said.

"It's like a meat pie, it's what an Aussie is and does. Our strength is that our game is global and what the Olympics does is it showcases that.

"I always felt it was a second or third-tier Aussie, athletically, that was attracted to basketball, the kid who wasn't so good at footy or wasn't so good at cricket and they found basketball.

"Now, I think a guy who could be a great footy player, or a great cricket player is choosing basketball because of the things like the Olympics and the visual of that.

"It's not one or two guys, it's a number of guys and a number of communities. There's the Sudanese community, the Aboriginal community.

"The impact of it hasn't fully taken place but that medal is going to be hugely significant in the volume of people playing the game."

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