Australia's greatest female basketballer, Lauren Jackson, will work with the AIS and Basketball Australia to ensure she has a good quality of life after her career as they join forces to fight to keep her Olympic Games bid alive.

Jackson and the Canberra Capitals are working to finalise a release from her WNBL contract after she suffered a new injury while trying to make a comeback.

It is understood the 34-year-old tore part of her anterior cruciate ligament while training with the Capitals as she pushed to get back on the court and help the struggling club.

The ACL injury is different to the knee problems that have hampered her for the past two seasons and have limited her to just six games for the Capitals.

The injury has denied Jackson, influential in a number of Capitals championships, the chance to go out on her terms with the club confirming on Thursday she had played the last game of a landmark $1 million deal.

Jackson still holds hope of making it back on the court in time to be a part of the Australian Opals' Olympic campaign in August.

It is believed she will do her rehabilitation at the AIS and work with BA officials following knee surgery in December.

The first target is to recover in the hope she can help the Opals chase another Olympic medal, in what would be her fifth Games. But it is understood all parties are taking a view to her post-playing days and making sure the stress on her body does not linger into retirement.

Fairfax Media revealed on December 30 that Jackson's domestic Australian career was all but over after suffering another injury setback.

Capitals coach Carrie Graf said it was a "no brainer" to sign Jackson on a long-term deal despite her injury history, and that the superstar would be remembered as one of the three best female basketballers in the world.

"It wasn't really a punt. At the time [of sorting Jackson's contract] the profile she brought to Canberra, our team and her sheer on-court performance and value, no one foresaw she would only play six games in three seasons, prior to that she had no knee problems.

"Obviously for any athlete, to not be able to retire on your terms is devastating. She wants to play and unfortunately in her WNBL career she's not going to get the chance to finish playing basketball.

"We'll do some things as a program to farewell her and that's why she kept pushing it too, she wanted to play one last game for the Capitals."

​Jackson signed the biggest contract in Australian women's domestic sport to play three seasons in Canberra between 2012 and 2016, with third-party sponsors digging deep to table the offer.

The four-time Olympian has won championships in Australia, Europe and the United States as well as a world championship with the Opals and WNBL and WNBA most valuable player prizes.

She also lifted the Capitals to their first WNBL title in 1999-2000 and the club is now on its knees after failing to win any of its 16 matches this season.

University of Canberra Union boss Joe Roff oversees the Capitals program and said: "We've said to her with her goal of making history and reaching Rio, she can focus on that without any pressure from the Caps program to come back for this season."

The Capitals are in the midst of a wide-ranging review into the franchise's on and off court performance this season, and Roff hopes to make the findings public in the coming months.

"We're still in the midst of a full 360 review of the program, but certainly the structure of player payments and how the roster is made up is certainly part of that," Roff said.

The Capitals will look to end their losing streak when they play the Perth Lynx at Belconnen Basketball Centre on Saturday night.