KEY POINTS:
Training has long since finished but Tony Ronaldson is still on the court at the Breakers' training complex in Mairangi Bay.
After a long chat with coach Andrej Lemanis, he begins practising his three-point shooting.
The first two attempts clatter away off the rim. It's a sight Breakers fans became well accustomed to earlier in the season.
Having arrived in Auckland with a reputation as a big man who could shoot the three, Ronaldson looked more like a bloke who would struggle to hit a barn door with an elephant.
He was so off target it began to look as if teams were intentionally leaving him open.
He certainly didn't look much like a player who entered the season eighth on the NBL's all-time three-point scorers' chart, with over a thousand long-range bombs to his name.
Back at training, he connects with his third attempt from the baseline. And his fourth. And his fifth. In all, 12 consecutive shots go down from all points of the compass until his next miss. He then nails another 12 straight.
Nicknamed the Bear because of his disproportionately long torso and awkward running style, Ronaldson can certainly shoot all right.
"Actually I think I look more like a duck," he says of the nickname.
It's typical Ronaldson.
A player with more NBL wins to his name than any other, and who will likely end his career on top of the all-time appearance list, he's a self-deprecating sort of character.
He's also a realist.
"I'm not a flashy type of player that kids will want to come and watch," he says.
"I'm the type of guy that teams like to have but people aren't going to pay money to see me play."
Plenty have.
Later this season - his 17th - he'll crack the 600 appearance mark. Next year he should be wearing Breakers colours when he surpasses Andrew Gaze's all-time appearance record of 612.
"It will be nice to look back on but I just enjoy winning and being part of a group of guys who are trying to achieve something," he says.
Winning is something the Breakers have done a bit more of lately. The club's bid to make its first play-off appearance appears to be on track.
But Ronaldson knows the season is still teetering on a knife edge.
If last week's overtime victory over the bottom-placed Slingers had gone the other way, the club could already be battling to save its season.
Instead, they won the game and went on to post a convincing season's first victory on Australian soil against Gold Coast.
Regardless of last night's result, the club is now poised to push on into uncharted territory and become a factor in the post-season shake-up. In previous seasons, that turnaround simply wouldn't have happened.
"Last year I wasn't part of the group but it seemed like the team didn't become a team - they sort of disbanded in the face of adversity," Ronaldson says.
"This year when we have faced adversity we have banded together."
The best example of that was the recent victory over the defending champion Brisbane Bullets, when the Breakers came out on top despite blowing a 17-point second-half lead.
"It would have been very easy to let it go but we showed some character. We have some mentally strong players. You need that.
"Everyone on the team has a belief in what we are doing and what we need to do to win."
But they are not the finished article.
"We are evolving. We can't just go out and say 'we are going to be champions'. We have to build it.
"When the Breakers first started they built the house without the foundations.
"They put it all together and then it sort of fell over."
Lessons had been learned, he says. The club was now built on solid foundations and had the potential to become a "powerhouse" in the league.
"We are starting to build a culture here that is exciting to be a part of but we are not making any outrageous statements that it is all going to happen in a year."
* BEAR FACTS
Name: Tony Ronaldson
Nickname: The Bear
Age: 35
Height: 203cm
Weight: 115kg
Position: Forward
