Rudy Gobert may not exactly be the most popular person in the Utah Jazz locker room right now.
The Jazz center Gobert, a three-time Defensive Player of the Year, made some comments this week criticizing the team’s play on defense. Gobert appeared to be singling out Utah’s guards specifically, and one of those guards seemed pretty unhappy about Gobert’s comments.
On Saturday, another Jazz player hinted at displeasure with what Gobert said. Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson “liked” a tweet calling Gobert’s comments a “subtweet,” essentially meaning that Gobert was taking a shot at someone in particular without mentioning names. Clarkson was asked by reporters why he “liked” the tweet.
“It’s just defense,” he replied, per Eric Walden of the Salt Lake Tribune. “It’s all focus. It is what it is. That’s what we’re going to hold our hat on, that’s what we’ve been talking about all year … We know what we gotta do.
“I ain’t gonna talk about it no more,” added Clarkson. “It ain’t like [Gobert] pointed out a big man. We know what we gotta do.”
The Jazz have lost their last four games in a row, giving up an average of 121.0 points per game in those losses. Gobert missed all four games after being placed in health and safety protocols.
Gobert is the leader of Utah’s defense, and the team suffers tremendously on that end of the floor whenever he is not around to anchor the unit. But the Jazz, who have had the same core for many years, are under the microsope this season, and Gobert’s comments did not appear to be very well-received.
Photo: Feb 24, 2020; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert (27) warms up before the game against the Phoenix Suns at Vivint Smart Home Arena. Mandatory Credit: Chris Nicoll-USA TODAY Sports
Utah Jazz veteran Jordan Clarkson had an issue with a fan in San Antonio on Monday night, but fortunately the incident was resolved before it turned ugly.
A fan was escorted out of the AT&T Center during the Jazz’s game against the Spurs after he apparently would not stop riding Clarkson. Clarkson was frustrated with some things that happened on the court, and the fan stood up and said something to him during a timeout. You can see the fan being escorted out below:
After Utah’s 110-104 win, Clarkson told reporters the fan “kept saying stuff” throughout the entire game. He said the fan eventually made a comment that “crossed the line” and was “a little too malicious.” Clarkson admitted to taking a step toward the heckler, but he said he thought better of it.
There have been some tense moments between NBA players and fans recently. Austin Rivers had some fans kicked out of a game last week after he says they crossed the line with trash talk. LeBron James also had some fans ejected earlier in the season, and it reflected poorly on him.
The NBA has to be careful about giving players the power to have fans ejected on the spot. At the same time, there is definitely a line that fans should not be able to cross. Clarkson clearly felt the fan in San Antonio did just that.
Photo: Dec 23, 2021; Salt Lake City, Utah, USA; Utah Jazz guard Jordan Clarkson (00) reacts after a dunk in the second quarter at Vivint Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jeffrey Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
A local TV reporter doing interviews with Utah Jazz fans stumbled across Jordan Clarkson, and didn’t even realize it.
Hayley Crombleholme, a reporter for KUTV in Salt Lake City, was doing street interviews when she stumbled across Clarkson. The Utah Jazz guard played it cool, complying when Crombleholme asked him to spell his name. Even then, she still didn’t realize that Clarkson played for the Jazz, making the next question about how many games he went to even funnier.
To Crombleholme’s credit, she was a good sport about it, joking that she had some follow-up questions for Clarkson.
Clarkson was cool about it after the fact, joking that he was relieved he spelled his name right.
It’s worth noting the same thing happened to Klay Thompson once, though that was in a different city than the one he played in and had nothing to do with basketball.
Clarkson is, of course, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year and was a major part of Utah’s success last season. It’s too bad Crombleholme didn’t get the chance to ask him his thoughts on dinosaurs.
There was some Filipino Pride at the Wild Card Boxing gym in Hollywood, Calif. on Saturday.
Jordan Clarkson was among the notable people who visited Manny Pacquiao at Wild Card Boxing. Pacquiao tweeted a photo and captioned it “Filipino pride.”
Clarkson called Pacquiao “the goat” and “legendary.”
In addition to Clarkson, some Black Eyed Peas members also visited Pacquiao.
Clarkson is half-Filipino and has competed on the country’s behalf in international competition since 2018. The 29-year-old NBA player is extremely popular in the Philippines. Though no athlete is better known than Pac-Man, who is also a senator in his native country. Pacquiao is training for his August fight against Errol Spence. The 42-year-old Pac-Man has won three straight fights but has not fought since 2019.
The Utah Jazz and Cleveland Cavaliers swapped guards in a trade made on Monday.
The Jazz acquired Jordan Clarkson for Dante Exum. Utah is also sending two future second-round picks to the Cavs for Clarkson, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Clarkson, who will be a free agent after the season, is averaging 14.6 points per game this season for Cleveland. The 27-year-old is making two three-pointers per game and knocking down 37.1 percent of his threes. He scored 33 points in his most recent game.
Exum, 24 has only played in 11 games this season after dealing with a knee injury. Once the No. 5 pick in the draft, Exum’s minutes have decreased in every season in the league. He’s averaged just 7.5 minutes per game this season.
What a difference an offseason makes.
Jordan Clarkson’s body appeared to be ink-free as recently as last season. But during the offseason, that all changed. Fans noticed that Clarkson was showing off new tattoos up and down his arms while he played for the Philippines during the Asian Games in August. He added even more since then and was seen sporting a neck tattoo during the Cleveland Cavaliers’ media day.
Clarkson was traded by the Los Angeles Lakers to the Cavaliers at the deadline last season. He is now teammates with JR Smith, a heavily-tattooed player, leading to a funny joke about Smith’s perceived influence on Clarkson:
Clarkson also cleared out his Instagram page. He started fresh, with his first post coming in mid-July showing him getting tattooed:
The Clarkson whom fans see this year will look a lot different from what they’re used to. Just be warned: you now know what to expect.
The last time we saw a tattoo transition happen this quick had to have been Monta Ellis.
Jordan Clarkson has had a rough NBA Finals so far to say the least, and now he is taking body shots from the media as well.
In an appearance Monday on ESPN’s “The Hoop Collective,” veteran reporter Brian Windhorst took a savage swipe at the Cleveland Cavaliers guard for his performance in the first two games against the Golden State Warriors.
“What would be more valuable to the Cavs? Jordan Clarkson or Kyrie Irving, on crutches, on the court, getting treated for a bacterial infection, with the IV bag coming down with him?” asked Windhorst.
Clarkson has managed only six total points and one total assist in the series so far, shooting just 3-for-13 from the field. Coupled with his below-average defense, it is clear he is hurting the Cavs on both ends of the floor right now.
Granted, perhaps Clarkson deserves some slack after being acquired from the Los Angeles Lakers at the February trade deadline and being asked to make the transition from a free-reign sixth man on a bottom-feeding team to a valuable (at least in theory) role player for a title-contending juggernaut.
Regardless though, the 25-year-old is taking heat from everywhere right now, and even Windhorst can’t resist getting his digs in.
H/T NBA Reddit
Jordan Clarkson continued to struggle in the postseason during Game 2 of the NBA Finals, and the Twitter critics were all over him.
The Cleveland Cavaliers guard came in for four minutes early in the second quarter. He missed a jumper, made a layup, and then got his shot blocked by David West before being replaced.
In Game 1, Clarkson wasn’t much better as he shot just 2-for-9 against the Golden State Warriors. He’s shooting just 30.3 percent in the postseason.
Folks were mocking Clarkson and the Cavaliers’ insistence upon using him despite his struggles. Here’s a sample of some of the tweets.
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Jordan Clarkson appears to be filling the intellectual vacuum that Kyrie Irving left behind in Cleveland.
In an appearance Monday on UNINTERRUPTED’s “Road Trippin’ Podcast,” the Cavaliers guard was being interviewed by co-hosts Allie Clifton and Randy Mims (a.k.a. DJ Montage) when he was told that Mims did not believe in dinosaurs. Clarkson then proceeded to articulate his own bizarre take on the prehistoric creatures.
“I don’t believe in dinosaurs either though,” said the 25-year-old. “Well no, I actually do. I believe that — alright this is going to get a little crazy, alright. So I’m going to take y’all a little left on this. OK so, y’all know how we got dogs and stuff, right? So, I think there were bigger people in the world before us, and like the dinosaurs was they pets.
“Oh you look at a dinosaur. They got to be three times bigger than them,” Clarkson added when asked how big he believed these supposed people were.
There doesn’t appear to be a lot of archaeological basis to Clarkson’s claims — per the United States Geological Survey, dinosaurs ranged anywhere in height from 3.3 to 39.4 feet. So unless you believe that megahumans anywhere from 10 to 118 feet tall used to roam the earth with no apparent fossil records of their existence, Clarkson doesn’t exactly make the most convincing argument.
Then again, it was on this very same podcast that Irving, an ex-Cavs guard in his own right, first made his own outlandish planetary claims. Thus, maybe Clarkson is simply assuming the role of Uncle Drew’s spiritual successor here.
Jordan Clarkson has had the rare privilege of playing with two of the greatest NBA players ever, and he can see at least one key distinction between them.
Appearing Wednesday on the “CavsHQ” radio show, the Cleveland Cavaliers guard contrasted the respective styles of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
“Two different styles of leadership. LeBron is very encouraging, bringing everybody along,” said Clarkson, per Alex Squadron of SLAMOnline. “And Kobe, he’s testing you, seeing what you gonna give him. If he’s gonna get at you, scream at you, cuss, do whatever it is. He had his own way of leading guys as well. Two different sides. I’m just blessed to see both of them.”
Clarkson, who is still only 25, was drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 2014 and played his first two NBA seasons with Bryant. He was dealt to the Cavs at the 2018 trade deadline, where he is now teammates with James.
The young guard is not the first one who played with both Bryant and James to opine on the distinction between the two. But Clarkson at least offers more evidence here on why it is difficult to accurately compare the two all-time greats when they are so wildly different, both in playstyle and in personality.
