Meet the National Basketball League's Kestelman family: together, they live and breathe the competition.

Justin Kestelman calls it “my first highlight basketball memory” – being 10 years old, on the Gold Coast, hanging out with the Melbourne Tigers. Being in the company of professional athletes stirred something deep within him.

“Talking to superstars, being part of that atmosphere; that really put the fire in my pit,” says the 24-year-old. “I love this sport and everything about it. And I love the way it makes me feel.”

His millionaire businessman father, Larry Kestelman, admits that his own passion for the sport also has familial roots. As a Ukrainian migrant, he was cajoled by his cousin into giving basketball’s spectator experience a try in the 1990s, and it shocked him.

“I expected just a basketball game.” Instead, he was wowed by the accompanying entertainment, the corporate aspect, and especially the predominance of families having fun.

When he first took Justin to a game he came away feeling like they’d been to a Harlem church where everybody went home with a spring in their step.

“It became time with the family, an uplifting experience,” Larry says. “We used to have those awkward moments of silence where you don’t always connect. Basketball has been that connector.”

Justin concurs: “Basketball isn’t a thing without him. That’s what really propelled our relationship, talking about something we both have such a passion for and a vested interest in.”

Lately, that vested interest has added another dimension – apparel group First Ever, which Justin is heading – to the suite of companies Larry Kestelman oversees from his 16th–floor penthouse office in Albert Park.

Co-founding internet provider Dodo (sold in 2013 for $203 million) shot Larry into Australia’s richest 100. Buying the Melbourne Tigers in 2012, then the National Basketball League itself in 2015, has taken that “connection” to another level.

“As we always do as a family, we’ve gone in boots and all,” Larry says, a backdrop of basketballs and champagne jeroboams framing his office chair. “No half measures here.”

Down on level one, the office of First Ever is buzzing. NBL jerseys on hangers fill the walls, while racks of streetwear surround pods occupied by the development team, retail team and design house.

“The name stems from being my first-ever business, as cliched as it is, but also that we’re the first ever professional basketball league to own its own sporting label,” Justin says.

It’s happened in a hurry. Last December, his vision was being jotted on sticky notes – of producing playing gear for every basketballer from entry level to NBL, with a percentage of sales injected into junior development, and a streetwear label with the game’s youthful, be-yourself vibe.

“I did the research, spent three months speaking to every association, mums and dads, and put together a business case that my father ended up buying into,” Justin says. “How do you offer a sporting product and a streetwear product? I had a designer and a buyer, and the rest is history.”

As a teenager, Justin was teased as ‘Dodo Boy’; what he wore became his vehicle for expression. First Ever’s slogan – “You Do You” – is a veritable declaration of identity.

“The whole brand is about street individuality,” says Justin. “If you like the jumper, wear the jumper; if you like the whole outfit, you do you. It’s about showing who you are as a person.”

He laughs at his father’s claim to being the brand’s ambassador – “I tell him to stay far, far away.” In response, Larry concedes that the fact he doesn’t own any apparel interests might be telling. “He’s sent me the message that I’m not his target demographic; he reminds me often that he’s trying to make it cool again.”

Justin manages all operational aspects, briefing his father about the business weekly. A recutting of traditional team jerseys in step with the NBL’s new era is planned, with a blue strip with a dominant ‘M’ hanging on a First Ever wall a sign of what’s to come.

Larry Kestelman was criticised when he rebranded the Melbourne Tigers, a force in the NBL’s boom years, as Melbourne United. Now, with grandstands filling once more, exposure on both Foxtel and Channel Nine and the huge figure of Andrew Bogut returning home to play out his twilight years, not to mention stars like Ben Simmons, Patty Mills and Joe Ingles giving Australian basketball global credibility in America’s NBA, his vision is coming together.

“There’ve been a few sleepless nights worrying about how to make it sustainable, but I feel we’re coming out the other end now,” Larry says.

As a new NBL season dawns, he looks forward to sitting together as a family, including his 83-year-old mother, and seeing other clans enjoying a couple of precious hours together. His son will be there, of course, and he can think of no greater joy than their passion being shared in work and play.

If Justin feels any obligation to succeed, it’s as much to himself as to his father. “He believes in me and trusts me, which is scary, but reassuring at the same time. I won’t fail him, and I won’t fail myself.”