Steven Adams has once again left his Tall Blacks singlet on the clothes hanger and turned his back on New Zealand.
The decision has left many a Kiwi outraged but it must be asked: if you found yourself in Adams' big shoes would you make the same decision?
For some of you it'll be a definite 'no' but let's not get so hasty when you consider the money at stake. It's a big 18 or so months coming up for Adams, so let's draw on a recent example from close to our shores where someone put country before NBA career.
The scene is set in Ljubljana, Slovenia, August 2015.
The Australia Boomers and their squad sprinkled with NBA talent had travelled to play the European country in two friendlies in preparation for the FIBA Oceania Championships against New Zealand.
Promising point guard Dante Exum blew past Jaka Blazic before planting his feet and popping up for a shot in the paint.
The 20-year-old barely got off the ground before a grimace stretched over his face.
Exum tore his ACL and subsequently hasn't played a minute this season for the Utah Jazz, a team who drafted him fifth in the 2014 NBA draft, this season.
Jazz teammate Gordon Hayward summed up his injury saying "sometimes you've got to take a step back to take two steps forward."
Sure, you'd expect Exum to bounce back. He's young and Utah will give him time, but there are never any certainties with a 6' 6" athlete and a knee injury.
Athletes can't think about injuries, clearly they can strike whenever, but Adams going down now would be terrible. He doesn't have the time to take a step back.
You can limit the chance of injuries by resting up and skipping meaningless games, and clearly playing for New Zealand isn't so important to Adams right now. But you can understand why when you consider the stress of playing international basketball on the back of a long NBA season.
Some will point to San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker confirming he'll play for France, one of New Zealand's opponents at the FIBA qualifying tournament.
But the 33-year-old four-time NBA champion and Adams are in very different boats.
While the 22-year-old has gone from strength to strength since being drafted in 2013, the big asterisk hanging over Adams is that he has one year left on his rookie deal.
It's almost pay day on that big second contract, a carrot that entices some kids to play the one mandatory year of college basketball before turning professional at 18 or 19 to speed up the process.
Adams has fought his way into a starting role for the Oklahoma City Thunder, a team tracking with a 40-16 record that is braced for a playoff run.
If Adams' continues his rise, and with the NBA salary cap expected to jump up thanks to new television deals, the man from Rotorua can secure his playing and financial future for years to come.
Adams is earning $2.27m ($3.40m NZD) this season and will make $3.14m ($4.71m NZD) during the 2016/17 season.
You could make a pitch that Adams' next deal could range anywhere from $8-16m per season, almost guaranteed to be double what he's making now.
So the timing just isn't great for New Zealand, never mind the uphill challenge they would face to qualify for Rio even with the defensive presence of Adams in the squad.
However, what Basketball New Zealand can reap now is what Adams' is achieving in the United States and the rise of basketball in this country.
Basketball interest has spiked (some of course can be attributed to the Breakers success) and there has never been more exposure to the NBA since Adams made it into the league. I bet everyone reading this spotted an Adams Thunder jersey over the summer.
While he might not be playing in black, a successful Adams in the sport's pinnacle league still makes noise.
We can argue until we're blue in the face about whether Steven Adams will ever play for the Tall Blacks with coach Paul Henare saying the door is always open, but can we cool the talk until he signs that big second contract?
Let's wait until the ink has dried on the deal and Adams' is sitting comfortable with his NBA team before bringing this up again, because the result will only be the same if those dots don't line up.
Newshub.
