Clarkson’s contract is guaranteed

THE LOS ANGELES Lakers reached one of their easiest decisions recently by locking in the contract of Filipino-American player Jordan Clarkson.

Clarkson’s deal with the team becomes guaranteed for a year since the Lakers did not waive him on or by August 1.

“It is team policy not to give out financial information on our players,” long-time Lakers spokesperson John Black told me by e-mail as he declined to divulge Clarkson’s salary.

But it has been widely reported that Clarkson, drafted 46th overall in the 2014 NBA draft, is being paid $845,059 for the coming season.

Clarkson, who was sent to Manila as a goodwill ambassador by the NBA several months ago, was among the league’s better rookies last year.

After waiting for the chance to play for the first part of last season, Clarkson emerged as the team’s primary point guard for most of the second half.

He averaged 15.8 points, five assists and 4.2 rebounds a game.

To cap off his performance, he earned a spot on the NBA’s all-rookie first team.

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Although the annual flu season is in full swing, it doesn’t look to be at its worst yet.

But the flu virus has been numbing to the basketball community where it has felled players expected to join a talent pool formed to select the national team to next month’s Fiba Asia Championship in China.

I am talking about the local type of “blue flu” that is keeping several aspirants, including three of the country’s best players today from clocking in with the rest of the Gilas Pilipinas team candidates.

Copping health and personal reasons are expected shoo-ins slotman June Mar Fajardo, a two-time PBA MVP; defensive big man Marc Pingris and fleet-footed playmaker LA Tenorio and promising hopefuls Paul Lee and Marcio Lassiter.

Fajardo, Pingris and Tenorio were part of the Gilas team Chot Reyes coached to second place behind the mighty Iranian team in the 2013 Fiba Asia held in Manila and went on to compete in the World Cup in  Barcelona the following year.

The flu might be blue but the cause maybe one or all of the alleged flaming red reasons listed by colleague Recah Trinidad—a masked mutiny, corporate power play or plain sabotage of the team being assembled by new Gilas head coach Tab Baldwin.

Everything about this seemingly synchronized action has been baffling for basketball fans because none of the home teams of the absentees seem to care and have turned a blind eye to the incomplete national training pool.

A senior basketball writer who requested anonymity observes that even the team’s godfather—business tycoon Manny V. Pangilinan who obviously wants to see more warm bodies in the training pool—has remained strangely silent.

The writer said the absent players have said their piece but appear to harbor deeper reasons for begging off from the PH squad now being molded by Baldwin into fighting form to have a shot at the lone Asian slot for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.