Melbourne United star Mitch McCarron recounts growing up in Alice Springs and learning to shoot

As a three-year-old growing up in the Red Centre, Mitch McCarron wasn’t big enough to shoot on the hoops but that didn’t stop the tenacious toddler improvising ways to do his “Larry Bird and Michael Jordan” impersonations.

Mitch McCarron learned to shoot growing up in Alice Springs. Picture: AAP

As a three-year-old, Mitch McCarron wasn’t big enough to shoot on the hoops but that never stopped the tenacious toddler from doing Larry Bird and Michael Jordan impersonations.

The Alice Springs-born son of basketball tragics Don and Louise would instead tow along a rubbish bin and shoot at it for hours while his parents managed the outback stadium.

MATCH: GOULDING CATCHES FIRE IN UNITED WIN

HISTORY: SIMMONS NAMES AN NBA ALL-STAR

If not shooting, McCarron, who spent the first four years in the Red Centre, would be buzzing at the feet of anyone on the court, including visiting NBL teams and the Harlem Globetrotters.

“That’s all he wanted to do. He wasn’t interested in bikes or anything else,” Don McCarron, director of coaching at Brisbane’s Northside Wizards, told the Sunday Herald Sun.

“The stadium was basically his backyard. It was too hot to have a backyard so he used to cut lose.”

The McCarrons practically lived at the airconditioned venue, partly due to the explosion of basketball in that region between 1992-96, but also to escape the searing heat.

McCarron had the run of the place and hundreds of juniors — “babysitters” — to play with.

Mitch McCarron in full flight for Melbourne United. Picture: AAP

Among them, Australian basketball stalwarts Brad and Mia Newley, whose parents, Arthur and Janelle, moved to Alice Springs for work about two years after the McCarrons.

While McCarron’s memory of those early years is scant, the Melbourne United and Boomers star — raised in Brisbane — is desperate to get back to Alice Springs.

“I don’t remember a ton, but I used to love playing one-on-one against the imports,” McCarron said.

“They’d be shooting around ... and I’d be running around and up to them.

“I’d like to go with my dad or mum, just so we can go around town and they can show me all the old spots.”

McCarron, widely regarded as one of Australia’s best players outside of the NBA had stints in Spain, Slovenia and Cairns before moving to NBL champions Melbourne last year.

While swelling around the knee has slowed a standout campaign the versatile guard-forward is set to manage the injury through to the end of the season.

But McCarron and American girlfriend Abby, who the 26-year-old met playing college basketball in Denver, have a welcome distraction on the home front.

Their sorely missed boxer-staffy cross Murphy will be released from quarantine on Monday.

“We have done it the right way,” said McCarron, who recently started a one-day-a-week data entry role at La Trobe Financial, to get a taste of “work life”.

Mitch McCarron started young. Picture: Supplied

“I have avoided all negative media regarding my dog and me as an owner.

“He’s a big dog. He’s not like a tiny one that we could even try and sneak in.”

Brisbane Bullets import Lamar Patterson did a Johnny Depp and fell afoul of Australian authorities last year when he carried his French bulldog Kobe in his hand luggage.