Happy to be home Bairstow prepares to face last brother

Jarred Bairstow was never sure a chance would again present to play for his hometown Brisbane Bullets, but he is delighted it's happened with him returning an NBL champion as he ticks off another brother to play against at home this Thursday night.

Bairstow has now compiled 113 games in the NBL that began at the Bullets back in the 2016/17 season following his college career at the University of Central Oklahoma.

He was able to play alongside older brother, Cam, in that first season at the Bullets and would later play against him too when he was with the Perth Wildcats and Cam was in the last season of his decorated career at the Illawarra Hawks in NBL21.

Since then, Jarred spent the past three seasons as a leader and cornerstone of the Tasmania JackJumpers that culminated in the NBL24 championship triumph as he now returns to Brisbane as a well-respected veteran and leader across the competition.

Bairstow is now delighted to have come full circle to be back at the Bullets and is especially happy to be back home to be able to play in front of family and friends a lot more than just the once or twice he would come back to Brisbane as the visiting team.

"It's pretty surreal, I played here back in 2016 when we were also at the Entertainment Centre funnily enough and it's just surreal to be back," Bairstow said.

"I don't know any other way to describe it. I didn’t know if I would have any other opportunity to play for Brisbane in my career, but it just happened to work out this way.

"It's so nice to see a lot of friendly faces up in the crowd and you walk past every man and their dog, and they seem to remember from playing here before.

"That's a cool little feeling and then to also see all my family up there is so nice instead of only getting to play in front of them in one or two games for a whole year. That's pretty cool having them there."

Bairstow has four brothers and two sisters, and he's already ticked off playing against Cam in the NBL while having played with and against Kieran in the then QBL competition.

He also spent some time playing with younger brother Sean at the South West Metro Pirates prior to him leaving for college, but now this Thursday night could be the first chance for them to play against one another.

Sean has joined the New Zealand Breakers this season but didn’t hit the court for the first two games, including against Brisbane at HoopsFest, but showed some good signs on the recent NBLxNBA trip to the United States.

With sister Steph having also started her New Zealand season for the league-leading Northern Kahu, it's quite the proud basketball family that Jarred is part of.

"It's always a cool experience and the last time I was on the court with him would have been five or six years ago at the South West Pirates when it was still the QBL," Bairstow said.

"I loved that time with him and obviously it's going to be a change of pace to be on the flipside, but I did get the chance to play against Cameron when he was playing at Illawarra, and we did spend some time here at the Bullets.

"Sean is the last brother that I haven’t actually got to face off against other than Daniel but he doesn’t play so much. It's going to be a cool little experience."

Jarred has already enjoyed seeing Sean this week and is looking forward to seeing him out on the floor in opposition colours on Thursday night.

"We went and got a coffee together earlier in the week and he loved travelling around with his boys over in the States, and obviously playing against the NBA guys is a completely different experience, and a very different game," he said.

"But he loved that experience and he got some good burn against OKC so it will be interesting to see if he can get some minutes on Thursday night and hopefully that can coincide with me on the floor also, but we'll see how that plays out."

After his first stint with the Bullets, Bairstow continued to play outstanding NBL1 North basketball including a championship at the Brisbane Capitals leading to another NBL chance at the Wildcats and then the past three seasons with the JackJumpers.

He also won an NBL1 South championship at the Hobart Chargers, but at the JackJumpers he was a cornerstone of building that team into the 2024 championship winners, and he'll always treasure those three seasons there.

"I loved my time in Tassie. They were fantastic to myself and my family, and my wife Maddie absolutely loved it and made lifelong connections down there, and so did I on and off the court with everybody there," Bairstow said.

"I couldn’t speak more highly of that whole club and what they've put together, and going into that experience I had no idea what to expect.

"But what we were able to build culturally is now sort of seen as a standard around the league, and that's something that I can help build here in Brisbane now.

"I hope I've been able to have some sort of impact the last few months and hopefully I can keep impacting how we go about business here to learn from some of those habits we formed down in Tassie."