Pinder kicks off Indigenous Round with Binar Futures clinic

Pinder hit the court at Swan Active for a mini-clinic hosted by the Indigenous Wildcats star before a fun Q+A where the Binar youngsters got to ask their hero a series of questions.

As part of the event, 100 tickets were given away to Thursday night’s Indigenous Round clash against Tasmania at RAC Arena, thanks to game-night partner P&N Bank.

“It was great, I loved it,” Pinder said after hosting about 60 students for a clinic.

Pinder said it meant a lot to spend time with the next generation of Indigenous basketballers.

“It means a lot to me because all these kids are so passionate about basketball and they love it so much,” he said.

The Wildcats will wear specially-designed Indigenous jerseys against the JackJumpers on Thursday night.

Fittingly the jerseys were designed by Pinder’s cousin - Karrajarri, Nuggaja, Noongar, Maori artist Jarnda Bina Councillor-Barns - who’s also doing the artwork on his basketball shoes.

“She did a great job, she’s actually designing my shoes right now so I can’t wait to see what I look like,” Pinder said.

Thursday’s clash tips off at 6.30pm at RAC Arena and is the first of two games in three days for the Wildcats, who travel to Melbourne on Friday to take on Melbourne United at John Cain Arena on Saturday night.

Pinder said despite the JackJumpers sitting ninth on the NBL ladder, they were a dangerous outfit.

“It’s a very important game coming up so we need to focus on that,” he said.

“These double rounds have been killing us but I think we’re going to pull it together and find some strength in our hearts for Indigenous Round.

“They (Tasmania) have got some really good players in their team, especially Milton Doyle as we saw last time when he hit some very tough shots to send us to OT(overtime) and they ended up beating us.

“But hopefully we can come away with a win.”