Gilas Profiles : Jordan Taylor Clarkson

photo source centriotimes.com

Jordan Clarkson may not have played a single game with the Gilas Pilipinas, but for the Gilas organization and his Pilipino fans, he is already a part of the family.

Jordan Clarkson was born on the 7th of June 1992; He was a son an African-American Mike Clarkson, and Filipino-American Annette Davis. His parents met at the U.S. Air force reserved, they did not have a lot during Jordan's childhood so it must be a blessing to him having to live his life now.

Jordan Clarkson was named after the legend Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls. He was born on Tampa, Florida but then moved to San Antonio, Texas at around the age of six. There he attended and joined the varsity team of Karen Wagner High School who won 105 of 119 games during his season there. He has been awarded as the San Antonio High School player of the year and has been one of the top prospects in Texas for college basketball teams.

Jordan has the traits of a Filipino. Having respect to his elders is one of it. He never calls his grandma other name than lola (grandmother). He said that he and his grandmother raised him strong due to the life that his mother and grandmother had when they lived in the poverty of the Philippines. It is the cause of what great work ethic that Jordan has now.

Tulsa University has been the first of his two stops in his collegiate career. As a fresh man, he instantly gathered attention, as he won the Conference Freshman of the week 4 times leading him to be a part of the 2011 Conference USA all-freshman team.

In his sophomore year he made a name by increasing all of his stats line except for one which is his free throw percentage. He drops from shooting at line of 79.3 percent to 78.4 percent. Aside from increasing his productivity, he also increased his award vault; wining the All-Conference USA first team, and the NABC All-District 11 team.

After his sophomore year with the Tulsa University, he transferred to Missouri, but due to the transferee rules of the NCAA, he has to sit down for a season before he can play for the basketball team of his new school.

When Jordan has been allowed to play with the team, he has shown his greatness and passion for the game by continually improving on all aspects of his game. During his time in Missouri, he was named to the 2014 All-SEC second team, Wooden Award Midseason Top 25 list, and won three Southeastern Conference Player of the Week award.

During the draft of 2014, Clarkson was projected to be a late first round selection but lots of team by passed him, sliding him down to be picked 46th overall by the Washington Wizards. The Los Angeles Lakers shows immediate interest on him offering $1.8M dollars to buy the right to sign Jordan Clarkson, and the Washington Wizards replied with a yes, bringing Jordan Clarkson to the Los Angeles Lakers.

He played a lot during the NBA Summer League for the Los Angeles Lakers, as most rookies do, but has been assigned multiple times to the Los Angeles D-Fenders of the NBA Development League resulting to not playing for the Lakers most of the first half of the season.

But in the second half of the season, he became one of the starting backcourt players of the Los Angeles Lakers along side with Jeremy Lin. They became the first ever starting Asia-American backcourt players in the history of the NBA.

He ended the season being listed as one in the NBA All-Rookie team, he also earned a new nick name by the way of Robert Sacre who calls hi Pacquioa.

Clarkson started talks of being eligeble to play as a member of the Philippines national basketball team this pass month. The rumors started when he has been reported to have acquired a Pilipino passport before reaching the age of sixteen, which is the first rule in FIBA basketball when signing a mixed nationality players.

But due to the conflict of the start of the training camp of the Los Angeles Lakers, which Jordan Clarkson is currently commited, and also the lack of time to process the requirements right, he has not been listed to the final roster of the Gilas Pilipinas players that will compete for the gold and the spot in the upcoming Rio Olympics.

However the team is not closing its door for the future tournaments that it will be participating. After they have processed the requirements of Jordan Clarkson, they will give all that they have to qualify for the Rio Olympics and then invite again Jordan Clarkson to the team.

Jordan said that he is very disapointed on not being able to play for the team now, but he thinks that it is fair for all the players that worked hard to earn the spot in the team.

Jordan Clarson Highlights

Video Source youtube.com/channel/UCIgm2X3RWGeei2UrFjNjuxw (1677091 Productions)