by Dave Albarado
Jordan Clarkson is the NBA’s 6th Man of the Year
Jordan Clarkson of the Utah Jazz is the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) 6th Man of the Year. It means that Clarkson is the most exemplary player who comes off the bench hence the term 6th man.
Clarkson has gone a long way from his time in Los Angeles and then in Cleveland where his career was going nowhere. It is Divine Providence that he ended up with Utah as he thrived under the system of Quinn Snyder as the Jazz is now a championship team after ending the regular season at the top of the standings.
Clarkson was this season’s revelation and will be a valuable piece in the Jazz’s drive to the championship as Donovan Mitchel remains to be injury-prone and out of the player rotation.
Clarkson’s contribution together with Joe Engels and the rest of the bench will be a huge boost to Utah’s goal to return to the NBA finals and perhaps win the franchise’s first title.
The award bodes well for Gilas as Clarskon expressed his willingness to play for the Philippine National Men’s Basketball Team in 2023 for the Fiba World Cup that will be jointly hosted by Japan, Indonesia, and the Philippines.
He will be a huge boost to our team but he needs to play as a local so Angelo Kouame can play as the naturalized player for the team. Fiba rules say that only one naturalized player per team can play. Thus, we are giving up some height if we choose Clarkson as our naturalized player instead of Kouame.
We do hope that the Samahang Basketball ng Pilipinas (SBP) can resolve the issue and be able to put Clarkson in the 2023 Gilas line up as a local player.
If paired with our triple tower combination of Kai Sotto, AJ Edu and Kouame, we can surely have the ceiling to slug it out with basketball powerhouses in the world like Serbia or even those in Latin America like Argentina. We know that we can really compete with these countries if we have the right players. We saw this in 2014 during the World Cup in Spain.
Meanwhile, Thirdy Ravena signed a multi-year contract with San-en Neo Phoenix in the Japanese B League,
Ravena’s first season in the B League was not exactly amazing given that he was riddled with injuries and barely had playing time.
But we all know the caliber of this player and the marketing value Ravena brings to the league in general.