AFL 2023: Geelong rookie Joe Furphy opens up on being taken from local basketball and his talented siblings

Joe Furphy went from local basketball to the AFL ranks. He sheds light on how it happened and his brother’s aim to reach the NBA.

Geelong signed basketballer Joe Furphy as a category B rookie ahead of the 2024 season. Picture: Geelong Cats

Joe Furphy has some strong bloodlines.

His younger brother, Johnny, is one of Australia’s brightest basketball prospects and is gunning for the 2025 NBA Draft after Kansas University landed the small forward in August.

Johnny is a College freshman, and their sister Holly is a sophomore soccer star at Santa Clara University in California. Their mother was also a diver at national level.

Just a month after Johnny joined Kansas University, Joe joined them in the elite ranks when he was plucked from local basketball by Geelong as a Category B rookie.

Furphy had played one game for the Northern Knights in the Coates Talent League before opting to choose basketball over footy.

Deciding to take a year off basketball this season, the 203cm talent was approached by Geelong in May.

Joe Furphy became a Category B rookie in September. Picture: Alison Wynd

He was put through his paces at a try out session with some other potential pick-ups before training with the club’s VFL side.

There were other interested clubs, but Furphy decided to choose Geelong, becoming a Cat in September.

“I kind of kept my loyalty to Geelong. They are the ones that were been interested me for this long,” Furphy said.

“So I was maybe thinking about going to other clubs and stuff but at the end of the day they’ve put in the time with me, so I’m going to stay and keep improving here.

“With footy coaches and basketball coaches, they’d be like, ‘eventually you have to choose one’. And (previously) I was kind of enjoying basketball a bit more.

“Then I took a year off basketball just to see how much I missed it really and after that I kind of coincidentally got the call up from footy and it was just perfect timing.

“Then got the call up in around like August-September that I would get the gig which has been amazing so far.”

While he hasn’t been in an elite football environment since 2018, the 24-year-old has taken plenty of advice from his siblings on what it takes at the elite level.

He has high hopes for Johnny, who he managed to play take to the court with for Melbourne University last year.

Johnny Furphy in action for the Kansas Jayhawks. Picture: Darryl Oumi/Getty Images

“I’ve always been playing basketball with (Johnny) my whole life, just out in the backyard, same team,” Furphy said.

“Like even last year played at Melbourne Uni in the same team, even though he’s five years younger, so that was pretty great.

“He got in the kind of elite professional sport program a lot earlier than me. Even my sister as well. She’s at a soccer program in the States as well.

“They’re both in kind of professional sporting environments, so having that as a background and like, ‘this is how it’s gonna be’, has definitely helped me.”

Furphy has age, size and athleticism on his side as a ruckman but concedes he has plenty of work ahead to improve his skills.

He has received plenty of help from newly signed assistant coach Steven King, who knows a thing or two about rucking in the hoops, as well as experienced big man Rhys Stanley.

And he will have Category B success story Mark Blicavs, a former steeplechaser, there for any useful advice.

“It’s been great to learn off them like there’s, you know, coming from not much ruck experience at all and then having all this resources around me has really helped,” Furphy said.

“(Blicavs is) definitely a great person to learn off, to have people that have been in my position coming from different sports or the non-traditional pathways.”

Originally published as AFL 2023: Geelong rookie Joe Furphy opens up on being taken from local basketball and his talented siblings