Every game day in Minnesota, before the Target Center filled with 20,000 fans, Joe Ingles laced up. He would compete - and perform well, in his eyes - against first-round picks and lottery selections in pre-game pick-up runs. Come tip-off, he sat down, and the crowd roared for somebody else.
It's generally after morning shootaround on game days that the Timberwolves ran what they called SISL - Stay in Shape League - a pick-up format for the team's low-to-no-minutes players, young prospects, and whatever members of the coaching staff could still handle four five-minute quarters.
Ingles, who re-signed in Minnesota knowing full well his primary role was to be a veteran presence, was a consistent feature. And for a man who has done things in professional basketball he never imagined possible - twelve seasons in the NBA, five Olympic Games, over a career spanning two decades - it should have felt like enough.
It wasn't.
That's the prevailing reason Ingles - now 38 - has signed a two-year deal with Melbourne United, which the team officially announced on Tuesday, returning to Australia's National Basketball League 17 years after leaving the league in 2009 following a three-year stint with the South Dragons.
"I knew, deep down, I had that itch to play," Ingles told ESPN. "We would play pick-up every game day, and I would be competing, I would play really well, I felt really good. I obviously just wasn't getting the minutes with the team we had in Minnesota."
Ever since leaving the Utah Jazz in 2022, Ingles and his family have been taking his NBA career year by year. He signed with the Milwaukee Bucks but tore his ACL, so he would grind his way back to playing shape with back-to-back stints with the Magic - Orlando would become a home away from home - before landing with the Timberwolves.
On a playoff contender with relatively good wing depth, Ingles knew when he signed that his minutes would be scarce. Outside of some garbage time and the moments when head coach Chris Finch needed a savvy veteran to inbound the ball late in a game, Ingles functionally didn't see the floor.
Then came the last game of the regular season, against the New Orleans Pelicans. Minnesota had already locked up the six-seed; Finch had no reason to lean on his regular rotation. The door opened, Ingles walked through it, and in just over 30 minutes, he dropped a double-double - 15 points and 10 assists - in a high-scoring Timberwolves win. In a vacuum, a fine performance, but it meant more than that.
"To compete and do what I did in that game was kind of like a tick of the box," Ingles said.
"Like, I know I can still do this... There were no question marks in my mind that I can do this."
Ingles is clear-eyed about the shape he needs to be in when the NBL season eventually rolls around. He's suddenly going to be thrust into a role - probably 25-plus minutes, with high usage - he hasn't played in some time, but he has a level of confidence that he can step right into and impact winning.
"I wouldn't have done this if I didn't believe that," Ingles said of being able to make a meaningful impact in the NBL.
"I understand where I'm at in my career; I'm not 21 anymore. I'm very self-aware of where I'm at in my career. If I didn't truly believe that I could come in and make an impact and help this team win games, I wouldn't have done it. I'm not doing it for financial needs, I'm not doing it for the notoriety of coming back. I've played 20 years professionally, I've played 12 in the NBA, I've done five Olympics. I've done a lot of stuff I never thought I'd do in my career.
"Even though I wasn't playing, I still felt like I had a pretty good impact in Minnesota, but you still miss that competitive [nature] that made me start playing when I was five years old. I wouldn't do it if I didn't believe in myself being able to do it."
There's also the physical shift he'll need to face, as a 38-year-old who'll suddenly be forced back into meaningful minutes. Ingles got home on Saturday morning after the Timberwolves' playoff exit, spent Sunday with his kids, and was back in the gym by Monday.
He has a physio lined up. He'll be in the gym six days a week. He's been playing tennis - "I'm a semi-pro tennis player now," he says with a grin - to keep his legs moving while he stays off the court for a couple of weeks to manage a handful of minor niggles he's accumulated over the year.
There is, of course, more to this than basketball. The Ingles family has rarely been based in Australia since Joe left for Europe, then the NBA, nearly two decades ago. His three children have only really visited on holidays.
"They've got cousins they've never really spent time with," Ingles said of wanting his family back in Australia.
"We always laugh a little bit, we have friends over in the States, they'll be like, 'we're just dropping [the kids] off at the grandparents' house and we'll come out for dinner'. We've never had that option. Being around friends and family, and the competing and getting to play, it's something I've really missed the last couple of years."
At United, Ingles already has a clear picture of his role. A 6'8 wing who excels as a pick-and-roll ball-handler and was one of the NBA's premier three-point shooters in his Utah years, Ingles wants to make those around him better.
Chris Goulding - a longtime Boomers teammate and close friend - is coming off a year disrupted by injury. Ingles wants to help him get back: "I really feel like I can help him, getting him easier shots, getting him good looks," Ingles said.
He says much the same about Sam Waardenburg, the Kiwi big-man United signed earlier in the off-season. And on Shea Ili, the shifty defensive specialist: "I would've hated going to another team and playing against Shea, so that's a really nice thing to not have to deal with."
"I'm not coming back to try to take over the league," Ingles said. "I wanna do what I've done for 20 years, and I wanna make my teammates better, I'm gonna play hard, I'm gonna talk a lot of s--t, and have fun with it."
And, of course, scratch that itch.