A chameleon changes colour to get noticed. When the New Zealand Breakers make changes, it is to stay ahead of the chasing pack.
The back-to-back Australian National Basketball League champions opened their pre-season campaign with a match against the Wollongong Hawks in Christchurch last night.
Game two of the three game series is in Dunedin tomorrow night.
For coach Andrej Lemanis it is a chance to experiment and to examine how well the new systems are bedding-in.
The Breakers' remarkable success over the past two seasons owes much to the club's impressive depth. But a willingness to make changes has also helped the franchise maintain a competitive advantage.
This time last year a lot of people thought the Breakers would struggle without three-point exponent Kirk Penney.
Now many of those same people are probably wondering how the Breakers will fare without centre Gary Wilkinson.
The club would dearly loved to have kept the dynamic American on the payroll, but equally the franchise wanted to promote Alex Pledger to the starting line-up.
"One of our greatest strengths is our depth," Lemanis said.
"It means that we can sustain a certain level of play for the course of 40 minutes. Everyone is able to contribute in different ways and that holds the team in good stead throughout the game and for the season."
Of course the down side is good players spend more time on the bench than they would if they were at another club. Striking the balance between providing players with opportunities and keeping winning combinations together is a battle.
The decision to promote Pledger ahead of Wilkinson was a big call, but one which had to be made, Lemanis said.
"There is a salary cap and a points cap and it becomes a balancing act to get the best out of the caps as you can. At the end of the day we only had a certain amount of money available for Gary's position and he was able to get more money somewhere else and good luck to him.
"When you have success as we have had, it becomes hard to keep the group together, because the players become more valuable to other parties."
The Breakers have invested heavily in their development programme to stay successful on the court but also to stay "relevant to the community".
"The New Zealand public love seeing New Zealand kids running around. So, for the long term success of the Breakers, it was decided we needed to invest in the juniors. We've done that and we are starting to really see the benefits of that now with Tom [Abercrombie] coming through and having his opportunities and turning in to the player that he is.
"And now we've seen the development of Pledger and he has a very exciting year ahead of him.
"We continue to have these young kids coming through and that puts pressure on those above them, which is a good situation."
Wisconsin's Will Hudson replaces Wilkinson in the squad. He is more of a role player than one who will take the lead. Lemanis has been impressed with his attitude and believes the 2.06m forward will prove a good fit.
"The first thing you have to say about Will is he is absolutely committed to the Breakers' mantra of doing what is best for the group. He is low maintenance as far as ego is concerned ... he is a relentless rebounder, he runs the floor very well, he's active defensively and a lot of the things he does are things which don't show up on the stat sheets but end up helping your team win.
"We are looking forward to him coming in and again that is what the pre-season is [partly] about, figuring out how to best utilise his talents and how we can use him the best."
