Lauren Jackson says it's only a matter of time before Chinese teen sensation Zhang Ziyu is the centre of the basketball world.
At 220cm, the 18-year-old centre, now the tallest female professional basketballer ever, is dominating on senior debut for the host country at the current FIBA Asia Cup.
She is ranked third in the tournament for points, with 14.3 per game, despite averaging just 12 minutes of court time off the bench for the Chinese team which is undefeated after the pool games and is on track to face Australia in the finals.
The teen, who's parents both played basketball professionally, has had crowds and social media abuzz this week as she soars over her opponents and gets to the basket despite being triple teamed.
And she has a big fan in five-time Olympic medallist and Australia's greatest-ever basketballer Jackson, who shared her excitement about Zhang with Chinese great Yao Ming at the NBA Rising Star tournament in Singapore earlier this month.
"In terms of this major home event right now, I hope she's having fun and enjoying it and not feeling any pressure," Jackson told ESPN.
"She's starting to learn the women's game after graduating from under-age basketball and I just hope she's enjoying every minute because before too long she is going to be the centre of everybody's attention and dominating the FIBA game."
More than just her height, Zhang has the skillset and IQ to make her a burgeoning talent.
"Obviously she's super tall, but the way she plays she certainly has the ability to completely dominate purely because of her height," Jackson explains.
"In saying that, she's got great touch around the ring, she can catch and she's got a big, strong body, she's co-ordinated and has the ability to finish under pressure with three or four people hanging off her.
"She has the ability to get the ball up high, her teammates are throwing the ball up high and she's able to finish over four or five players who are six-foot but they're not even in the same air space.
"It's exciting to think about where she's going to go in the game and what's she going to do. It reminds me a bit of Margo Dydek, from Poland and who was a WNBA All-Star, she was 7'2 and an incredible athlete -- tall, had great touch, knew how to use her body."
Playing in a major home tournament as a teenager and the next big thing is something Jackson has lived and breathed.
She made her major tournament debut for the Opals at the 1998 World Championships and was already a big name and prospect come the Sydney Olympics.
"The Australian team, Tom Maher our coach and Marian Stewart the team manager made an effort of trying to protect me from the media and the external pressures. In our lead-in games to Sydney they made sure I wasn't doing much media and things like that," she recalls.
"There was a real conscious effort to take that pressure off but to be honest, I was so ignorant to the enormity of the situation and it wasn't until long after the 2000 Olympics I sat back and reflected on how special and rare an experience it was for me.
"It was a very strange, surreal time and I was ignorant to how much pressure was probably on me."
Zhang isn't eligible for the WNBA draft until 2027 but a World Cup in Germany is the next major fixture on the basketball calendar and of course an Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
"She's got the world ahead of her and depending on which pathway she goes -- she can speak to where she wants to go and go there," Jackson said.
"The FIBA game is incredible because it's all different styles of basketball, different cultures of basketball and when a player like this comes along you think about the possibilities and what that represents to that country and the world game.
"It is very exciting."