The NBL starts its 40th season on Thursday with Adelaide taking on this season's title favourites, Melbourne United.
Last season the 36ers finished top of the ladder at the end of the minor round before crashing out in the semi-finals against Illawarra.
"I don't think we have to make amends for anything," coach Joey Wright said.
"I thought we had a great year last year and hopefully we'll come back and have a great year this year.
"It's eight teams in the competition, only one's going to win the championship, we did everything we could to win it last year."
Melbourne has recruited strongly bringing in former Perth Wildcat Casey Prather to team up with star imports Casper Ware and Josh Boone.
The club also has an impressive Australian line up including Chris Goulding, David Andersen and David Barlow.
"United's obviously looking really good this year," Adelaide captain Brendan Teys said.
"For us it's all about going out there and working hard, sticking to our game plan."
Three new American imports
But Adelaide has also recruited well bringing in experienced guard Shannon Shorter, centre Ronald Roberts and shooting guard Ramone Moore, who last season played for Melbourne.
They replace last season's league MVP Jerome Randle who is now playing in Turkey, Eric Jacobsen and superstar teenager Terrance Ferguson, who will play for Oklahoma in the NBA.
Wright said the players had been impressive at training — until Tuesday.
"Today was a little sloppy, I wasn't that happy with today," he said.
Adelaide has retained all eight of its Australian players with big seasons expected from Nathan Sobey, Mitch Creek and Matt Hodgson.
The 36ers last won a championship in 2001-02 when Phil Smyth was coach and Brett Maher the captain of a team that included star import Willie Farley.
New import Roberts missed training on Tuesday with a knee injury and is in doubt for Thursday night's game at home.
"It's a concern but if you do this for awhile you know one thing's going to happen, players are going to get injured," Wright said.
The game with Melbourne starts at 7:00pm on Thursday, before Adelaide travels to Sydney to play the Kings on Saturday night.
Sydney has also improved after signing Todd Blanchfield from Melbourne and impressive young centre Isaac Humphries, while retaining South Australian Brad Newley and Kevin Lisch.
Adelaide will be hoping the Kings are tired after travelling back from the United States after losing to NBA team Utah earlier on Tuesday.
