With its future now secured, Adelaide's WNBL team must thrive -- not just survive -- according to its greatest coach and player.
The South Australian government assured the iconic club's place in the league on Thursday, committing $571,000 a year for the next three years while teaming up with the WNBL's new ownership which took control of the league last month.
Australian basketball's most successful senior coach Jan Stirling, who guided Adelaide to three championships in a row through the mid-1990s and led Australia to its only gold medal in senior competition at the 2006 FIBA World Cup, said while it was an incredible day there is still a mountain of work to be done.
"It's sensational but I wish it didn't have to get to this point," Stirling, who masterminded the Lightning's dominance through 12 straight finals appearances, told ESPN.
"The parties involved have worked behind the scenes trying to make this a reality so that the athletes can feel satisfied they've got a home and they can continue to represent the state and continue being an iconic team in the league like they have been for three decades.
"It's just a wonderful day because it was looking very grim."
There's been several changes of ownership across the past decade with the club hanging by a thread on life-support more than once.
Each time, three-time WNBL champion and triple Olympic medallist Rachael Sporn is wheeled out to front calls to save the Lightning.
"I've done these interviews every four-five years but this was the most dire," she said.
"We were running out of time, free agency is about to start, we don't have a coach. This was different and that's why I'm so relieved it's been worked out.
"Being at the press conference this morning and hearing the Premier (Peter Malinauskas) pledge his support was music to my ears because then you have certainty, you're able to build the culture back up, keep great players, recruit great players and get back to being a really strong, impressive program."
On court, the Lightning haven't won a title since 2008 and off it have failed to attract crowds while playing out of the dated Adelaide 36ers Arena, the very court Stirling and Sporn had their success on more than 30 years ago.
This new chapter will unfold at the impressive South Australia Sports Institute with access to office, gym, courts and medical and physiotherapy facilities elevating professionalism.
Whether the club keeps the famous Lightning name or rebrands, Stirling and Sporn agree -- South Australia's most successful sporting team needs to tap back into its DNA.
"Back in to the community and grassroots and they're a great team to be able to do that," Stirling explained.
"Way before our time we had a crowd of 7,200 come out to a Grand Final in 1994. We were in the community. We shared messages with the youth, it was a non-smoking message at that time and that's why we were the 'Quit Lightning' for the first 12 years. We went into schools not just to do basketball clinics but to have conversations with the kids about that aspect of their lives.
"We've got to build back to that and I think the Lightning can if it's done the right way. There's plenty of good people who will get behind it and retain it as the iconic brand it is for South Australia."
The importance of South Australia as a basketball state and its place in the national ecosystem was highlighted with four SA born players part of the Opals team which won a gold medal at last year's Paris Olympics -- Lightning players Steph Talbot and Isobel Borlase as well as captain Tess Madgen and Cayla George in her third Games.
Stirling said her home state has always flown the flag.
"We usually provided a quarter of the Opals team for the Olympics, world championships. Always three or four players every time, that says a lot about pathways and all the levels of the sport where they develop and nurture the players.
"To have their home consolidated for not just now, but beyond, is important."
Sporn said it's critical the new ownership now seek to re-sign their Paris Olympic pair.
"It's the absolute first thing that needs to happen," she said. "They are amazing players I see as our future, two Olympians, two superstars. They are SA juniors and we should be so proud of that.
"Izzy is very young and Steph's now a veteran. What a great balance that is to grow a team around them."
Maddy Freer made her WNBL debut for the Lightning last season, following in the footsteps of her mother Debbie who was part of the club's inaugural championship in 1994.
"The Lightning has been a constant in my life. Mum played, she took my sister and I to games from a young age and I have aspired to play for the club," the 21-year-old said.
"South Australia has elite pathways and players follow them from grassroots right through to the WNBA and it would have been so disappointing if there was no longer a national league for girls and women like me to play in."
The future for Freer and all young South Australian female basketballers is now written in the sky. And Stirling said it best.
"I'm a happy Jan today."