Lauren Jackson's greatness was evident from the outset

Lauren Jackson was an athletic, lanky 15-year-old when Tom Maher first set eyes on the young prodigy from Albury.

It was 1996 and Maher had just coached the Opals to Australian basketball's first Olympic medal in Atlanta. He was sitting in a regional NSW stadium watching the national junior championships where Jackson, the daughter of Australian representatives Marie and Gary, was playing for NSW Country.

"From the first moment I saw her I thought that's going to be the best player ever," Maher told ESPN.

"There'd been a meeting for the intensive training centre coaches from around Australia, so they're all sitting in the stands. We're all talking about Lauren, it was clear she was special. There was a time out and Lauren's looked up and there's 40 men just looking at her, in awe.

"I said at the time she's not going to be just the best player of the generation. I used the example of the Australian cricket team, at this time Steve Waugh is the best player and at this time this player is the best, but Bradman's hailed as the greatest.

"And I said this is not going to be the best player, Lauren is going to be the greatest.

"Some people associated were saying 'we need to keep things down, we need to keep a lid on her, we don't want her to get ahead of herself'. I said to someone 'no mate, that's not the point. The point is she is going to be the greatest and she needs to know how to be the greatest and how to handle it'."

By the following year, Jackson was in the Australian squad and her star was growing at the Australian Institute of Sport where a team of teenagers competed against women in the WNBL.

Her name was on everyone's lips, and she was already being held to different standards than her peers.

"One day Basketball Australia got a phone call from the president of the Canberra Basketball Association. Lauren was walking inside the building, and he said hello and she just sort of nodded back and looked like something was wrong," Maher said.

"So, they ring me, I ring Lauren and say 'what's going on?' and she said 'nothing, I was thinking about something so I just sort of nodded'.

"If that was anyone else the president might have thought 'I wonder if something is going on?' but because it's this special person it becomes an issue.

"I said to Lauren 'this is one of the things you need to know, you've got to know how to handle that attention'. There were several lessons like that I thought was necessary to be able to embrace the whole thing."

Come 1998, Jackson, now 17, made her senior international debut at the FIBA World Cup.

"She was an instant sensation in Berlin," Maher recalled.

"But she was just 17 and she didn't have a mature adult's conditioning. She was just a kid. Even though her skills were great she'd blow out in five or six minutes, so it was a constant need of get her in, get her out, get her in.

"But by the time Sydney came along she had another two years of conditioning, and she was able to go and she never looked back."

In 2000, a once-in-a-generation Olympic Games awaits in Sydney.

After the Opals heroics four years earlier, Basketball Australia sets the expectation of making the gold medal game for its women's team.

The USA have won three of the past four Olympic gold medals and bring a super team bursting with stars from the newly established WNBA out to Australia.

The Opals and the U.S. meet at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne for a warm-up game on the eve of the Games.

Jackson scores 11 points in the 83-62 defeat and goes head-to-head with the world's No.1 player Lisa Leslie and makes the highlights reel with a stunning block on the superstar forward in the third quarter.

She opens up to the broadcaster about her emotions in a pre-recorded interview.

"I have had a few days where I've sat in my bed crying and had my closest friends around just looking after me and other days, I've been really happy. I think it's just such a big deal the Olympics and it's really hitting me now how important it really is," Jackson said.

"I'm really, really, really excited, it's just a bit overwhelming at this point."

In 2000, Katie Smith is a 22-year-old guard representing the USA. She goes on to win a trio of Olympic gold medals for her country in Sydney, Athens then Beijing.

Smith, who has head coached New York in the WNBA and is currently lead assistant coach of the Minnesota Lynx , recalls news of Jackson's emergence finding its way to the U.S.

"We were aware of this young kid who was big, who was tall, who was versatile and was able to play with grown women and hold her own," she said.

"We got to see that first hand and it was like 'man!' she was a good size, she could run, she could shoot it, she was a problem and we saw that for many years."

Smith had played alongside Aussies and 2000 Opals Trish Fallon and Annie Le Fluer at the Lynx but noted Jackson was different.

"We all have guards, international players, there's a lot of little guards, shooting guards but talented bigs, those are the ones who really separate and take a team to the next level," she said.

"And that's what I think Lauren was able to do with Australia, you have all these talented players, but she was able to give the Opals size and shot blocking along with shooting the three.

"It gave them an excellent chance of trying to win gold at their home Olympics."

With established stars like Michele Timms, Shelley Gorman and Rachael Sporn plus a dash of young talent, Australia went undefeated through the group stage and met Poland in the first knockout game.

"There's a saying in basketball that as a coach you earn your money in the quarterfinal," Maher explained.

"Poland had Margo Dydek who was 7'2 (218cm) and they couldn't put her on Lauren because Lauren was way too mobile so they put her on Jenny Whittle who was 6'6 herself with a high centre of gravity, very smart and could shoot the three. In our offence we'd come down in transition and the trailing centre, the five, would come off a flare screen and make a catch and she had the chance to make a three-point shot.

"Dydek being that tall couldn't get over the screen and they couldn't switch because it was a little to big screen then that meant Jenny cut to the basket. They didn't switch, Jenny ended up getting about 100 three-point shots and we won."

Jackson added 17 points and 9 rebounds.

The Opals accounted for Brazil, 64-52, in the semifinal to advance to their first ever gold medal decider.

The teenage sensation from Down Under scored the opening basket and registered a 20-point-13-rebound double-double in her team's 76-54 loss.

Despite the disappointment of defeat, Australia had produced its best women's Olympic basketball result, a silver medal, in front of an emphatic home crowd.

Jackson also made headlines when her hand got entwined in Leslie's hair with her hair piece flying to the floor. Captain Michele Timms later likening the hair extension to a dead rat.

The Aussie young gun claimed it was an accident but Leslie believed otherwise: "Lauren Jackson pulled my ponytail off intentionally which is fine. I told her she could have it as a souvenir. I'll take the gold."

The rivalry between the queen of hoops and her heir apparent continued over the years to come in the WNBA.

Feeding Jackson in Sydney and at the following three Olympics which netted two more silver medals (Athens, 2004 and Beijing 2008) and a bronze (London, 2012) was point guard Kristi Harrower .

Harrower, 25 in Sydney, had been in the national squad for eight years before making her Olympic debut.

The pair roomed together in portable-style accommodation in the Homebush village. Both introverts, they quietly pottered around and would have a chat before bed.

Harrower now had a close on-court connection with Jackson after hearing about her for many years in the lead-up the 1998 Worlds.

"I was playing for Melbourne Tigers in the WNBL and Ray Tomlinson was our coach and the Australian junior coach, and he'd tell us 'Lauren Jackson is the next biggest thing coming through, she can dunk it in and she's only 14'," Harrower said.

"He'd always rave on about her and we were like 'who's Lauren Jackson?'"

Debutants Harrower and Jackson both cracked their way into the starting five in 2000.

"Tom had us really well drilled, we'd train six hours a day on the floor, and it was intense. I'd just feed it to Lauren all the time, throw the ball in the air, she'd catch it and score."

A once-in-a-generation athlete, Harrower said Jackson oozed class and grit.

"She was mentally tough, never took a step back, she pulled out Lisa Leslie's hair then ran down the court with her hand over her mouth type thing," Harrower added.

"She pretty much changed the game for Australia, she took the team to another level, Loz was the focal point of our team.

"She was already a star when she walked into that Olympic stadium and the whole world was watching her."

History will repeat itself when the whole world casts its eyes on Jackson once again, this time in Paris as the oldest basketballer at age 43 to play in an Olympics.