Bulla Basketball Memories: David Barlow

Thanks to Bulla Family Dairy we are taking a look back at some of our players’ and coaches’ early days of basketball.

Melbourne United veteran David Barlow has seen it all in his near two-decade professional basketball career, but his love of the sport stems way back to watching his older brother play the game as a youngster.

Barlow, who has won four NBL championships and been with Melbourne United since 2014, has held a love of the game since a very early age and can vividly remember watching his brother play junior basketball.

It was from there where he began on the path towards being a professional basketball player.

“The very first thing I can remember involves my brother and it’s probably the main reason why I started to play,” he told Melbourne United Media.

“He is eight years older than me and I used to go watch him play games. When some of my friends from school started a team I really wanted to join in, and I had that prior experience (of watching my brother) so I wanted to replicate him.

“The very first thing about basketball I can remember was going to watch him play.”

Barlow was born in the 80s and grew up loving the sport while Michael Jordan was in his first stint at the Chicago Bulls.

He credits Jordan as his first real basketball idol, looking up to him as he continued to train and play as a junior.

“I was born in 1983 and really fell in love with the game in the 90s,” he said.

“I fell in love with it right when Michael Jordan was in the absolute peak of his pre-first retirement powers, I had all his videos on VHS back then and watched them religiously.

“My first kind of idol in the basketball world was Jordan, I just tried to replicate what he did on the court as a kid.

“I’ve changed role models throughout my career and people who had been lucky enough to share the court and environments with – the coaches and veterans I’ve had on my teams have all been brilliant role models.”

Barlow spent his junior career playing for the Sandringham Sabres, in what was formally called the Big V competition, from 2001 to 2003.

While he says the Sabres were not the biggest club in the competition, they still provided him with a solid foundation to build his career.

“The way junior basketball is and the development (Sandringham) have is brilliant,” he said.

“I consider myself very lucky to still be a part of a great association in Sandringham, I played domestic and representative basketball there.

“We weren’t the biggest club around, but to be a part of representative competition and be able to play the best players in the state, it was a basketball lover’s dream.

“Those games have made me the basketball player I am today.”

It was also in 2003 that David Barlow commenced what has been an incredible on-going NBL career.

David Barlow in his first NBL season (2003) playing for the Sydney Kings.

Barlow, along with the rest of the squad are now building to what is set to be an NBL season to remember.

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