About a decade ago, when the LA Lakers’ Jordan Clarkson was still a baby-faced 23-year-old who’d never felt the sting of a tattoo needle, he was on the receiving end of a verbal lashing that would change his approach to the game forever. “We were in Portland,” said Clarkson. “And Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum killed us.” The team was in a deep funk, in rebuild mode after losing many of its stars in the off-season. After the game loss, Kobe Bryant, the elder on that 2015 squad, lit into the young Lakers, which in addition to Clarkson included future All-Stars D’Angelo Russell and Julius Randle. “And he was cussing us out!” Clarkson added. “‘Man, y’all basically killing the opportunity that y’all got as young dudes. Y’all need to lock in and focus.’”
Lessons from Kobe
Clarkson, 32, told me all of this over a video call from Utah, where he currently plays for the Jazz, wearing mirrored sunglasses designed for the slopes and a taut beanie that helped keep his braids out of his face. He’s a veteran now, with a CV that includes an NBA Sixth Man of theYear Award (2021) and a starring role on Gilas Pilipinas, the national basketball team of the Philippines, where his mother is from. He’ become part of a small diaspora of Kobe disciples who have since “locked in and focused” and become sought-after names throughout the league. “We were younger, so we felt it. It stuck with us to this day around the league. We don’t take nothing for granted, and we play every game like it’s our last.”
While the Mamba was hard on his young colleagues, as the team unc he could also be hilarious, sometimes more intentionally than not. Clarkson remembered one time when the whole team was already on a plane, probably heading to a game, half an hour behind—everyone, that is, except for Bryant. “Then we watched him land his helicopter next to the plane and not get out of the helicopter,” said Clarkson. “And he waited for his golf cart to pick him up to drive him two feet to get on the airplane.”
When Bryant finally got on the plane, the whole team started clapping and hollering, Clarkson said. “He was like, ‘What? Y’all was waiting for me?’”
Tampa to NBA Sixth Man
Clarkson was born in Tampa to a military family. His parents divorced when he was young, and he ended up being raised by his mother in San Antonio, where he grew up watching the Spurs. Clarkson was an excellent player and gravitated toward shifty, creative guards: local stars like Tony Parker but especially Manu Ginóbili, who is most notable for popularizing the Euro step in the league and, to Clarkson, making being an NBA sixth man something to aspire to. “Ginóbili was the first guy that I seen open up to [the idea of coming off the bench], actually made it cool,” he said.
And then sixth men like Jamal Crawford, Lou Williams, J.R. Smith, and Nick Young cemented in his mind that Jordan Clarkson was also worthy of joining their lineage.
Clarkson modestly credits his Sixth Man of the Year Award to the quality of his Jazz teammates, who opened up the floor and helped him to get easy looks, particularly from the three. But that’s only part of what completed him as a player. Clarkson was never the fastest on the floor, the most talented or even freakishly big for the position. He’s had to work hard for everything he has—and it shows. What separates latter-day Clarkson from his younger self is a quiet, steady confidence that imbues his game with a legato-like sense of rhythm. Nothing is rushed or overdetermined. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Hot Topic to High Fashion
The other thing that sets Clarkson apart from his contemporaries is that he doesn’t employ a stylist and never has. This is peculiar, as Clarkson is a fixture on just about every NBA fashion Instagram in possession of a Getty Images account.
Clarkson said he first started caring about what clothes he wore in seventh or eighth grade, when he and his classmates didn’t have to wear school uniforms anymore. So, he and his friends started hitting up all the stores at the mall. “I remember we were the first kids to go to Hot Topic,” said Clarkson, laughing. “Just trying to do different stuff. Metallica tees. Nirvana. Studded belts.”
But his first taste for fashion came when he met Virgil Abloh around 2015, when he was a sophomore in the league. The early Pyrex Vision stuff. BEEN TRILL. Off-White™ and eventually Louis Vuitton. “Just seeing his progress in the fashion world,” said Clarkson of Abloh, whose career he followed closely, and now “everyone’s wearing stuff like that.”
These days, he’s trying to recreate looks that call back to when he was younger. “The style for me right now is comfortability and bringing back the stuff like what I used to wear when I was at high school, the baggy stuff,” he said.
Right now he loves the work of contemporary designers like Willy Chavarria and is working on his own line of clothing set to debut later this year.
A Filipino Icon
Clarkson is also eager to play for Gilas again, an opportunity he doesn’t take for granted. There weren’t many Filipinos where he grew up in San Antonio, although there is a Jollibee now in his hometown. (Clarkson agreed when I suggested that the Filipinofast food chain should sponsor him.)
He only first visited the Philippines in 2015 and immediately fell in love with the culture of his ancestry. (“The most surprising thing to me is the food everywhere is fire.” Like what? I asked. “Thesisig!”) In the Philippines, basketball is nearly as sacred as the Catholic Church, and to Clarkson, Filipinos just have a different mentality when it comes to hooping. “It’s just like the purest form of basketball,” he said. “And just representing the country, all of us playing hard, fighting for one thing,and I really love that opportunity to play with all the guys there.”
He’s not quite on Manny Pacquiao’s level in terms of national adoration,but he is easily one of the most beloved professional athletes in the country. It isn’t uncommon to see Filipino kids running up and down the courts, hooping in thong sandals and a Clarkson Gilas Pilipinas jersey. His Gilas shirt, in fact, has become something of a collector’s item here in the States: An authentic Clarkson jersey with a swoosh can easily fetch $350 on eBay. He’s excited to put one on again at the next FIBA World Cup.
Well, thank you for your time, and those Gilas jerseys really are fire, bro, I said off-handedly as our call drew to a close.
“Hell yeah!” said Clarkson, seemingly excited by the sweet spot where clothes and hoops actually meet. “Especially the new ones. The light blue one is crazy.”
