JACK DECKER STEIN top and RHUDE trousers. Photographed by David Urbanke for the September 2025 Issue of Vogue Philippines
More than basketball, Jordan Clarkson is learning what it means to represent a people, not just a team.
Jordan Clarkson says his life has always felt like a blur. Not because he doesn’t remember much of his formative years, but because he was constantly in motion. “I was kind of a do-it-all kid,” he recalls. “I was outside, skating, biking, track and field, and playing a lot of sports.” He was restless, but it was actually the Texas heat that would become the catalyst for his career as a professional athlete. “Honestly, it was a little too hot to be outside in the summertime,” Clarkson says of his childhood. “So I started looking for an indoor sport. I ended up playing basketball, and I started to watch Kobe Bryant and Allen Iverson, then I just fell in love with the game through all that.”
And that love has taken him far, from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Utah Jazz in the NBA, and now as an established veteran for over a decade in the league. But professional basketball, for all its glory, is only part of his story. For Clarkson, who proudly represents the Philippines on and off the court, identity and legacy are woven through something deeper than the sport itself. It’s something he feels in his blood, and for the athlete, it started in kitchens, with the scent of classic Filipino recipes and the beats of a language he didn’t fully speak, but still understood.
“I’ve been aware of it since I was little,” he says of his Filipino roots. The son of an American father and a Filipino-American mother, Clarkson’s perspective had always been multicultural. “My grandma used to come and visit all the time, and she didn’t really speak that much English. And that was when we would just laugh, chill, hang out, watching her make chicken adobo and lumpia.” That memory of family gathered around food and stories became an early introduction to a culture that now shapes much of his worldview. Paying homage to this tradition, Jordan makes it a point to always try to host reunions whenever family would visit. He’s even taken it upon himself to become the head of the kitchen, cooking the same meals that his family used to enjoy when he was growing up.
Because of this upbringing, his first trip to the Philippines felt like a homecoming of sorts. “The people are so loving, caring, and passionate,” he says. That connection, first fostered in the dining table of his childhood home, now plays out in sold-out arenas and streets lined with fans. Over the last few summers, Clarkson has returned regularly to reconnect with family, and with a version of himself that’s true to his roots. “I wear Filipino on my skin every time I step out the door,” he says, and whether that’s related to his basketball career or his personal life, he finds pride in representing that culture.
“I wear Filipino on my skin every time I step out the door.”
This is why he believes his greatest achievement as an athlete was suiting up for Gilas Pilipinas, the national team of the Philippines. First joining the team in 2018 for the Asian Games, Jordan felt his identity sharpen into something powerful as he stood alongside rising stars and veterans such as June Mar Fajardo, Dwight Ramos, and Rhenz Abando. Instead of donning the jerseys of cities and states across different conferences in the NBA, for the first time, the athlete felt there was a greater purpose to the sport. “It means everything to me, and that was probably the most fun I’ve had playing basketball in a while,” he says about his national team stint. In the US, Clarkson is mostly celebrated for all his accolades as an athlete and as a front row regular at fashion week. But in the Philippines, he believes he’s more than that. He feels like he’s family. “When you represent your country, my grandma’s culture, my people’s culture, it’s a different feeling you get,” he says.
That sense of purpose continues in the way he mentors younger players, especially fellow Filipinos. “I used to talk to Kai Sotto, and I got to see his progress through the G League and his summer league workout with Utah,” he says of the homegrown talent trying to break into the international scene. There was also time spent visiting schools across the globe, speaking to students not just about making it in the world of professional sports, but about finding your place in the world. “It’s what I could do for these young guys in terms of giving back to the game, impacting their careers, and sharing my experiences,” Clarkson says, pointing to veterans like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and J.R. Smith who did the same for him as he was starting out.
And now as a veteran presence in the locker room, Clarkson has become more reflective of his position. Even today, watching highlight reels or seeing himself featured in fashion spreads still feels like a fever dream. “It’s still not real,” he says. But regardless of his accolades and with nothing left to prove, slowing down was never an option. In his down time, he tries to remain active even during rest days, training and lifting weights, with his most relaxing hobby being golf on the weekends. Despite all this, his focus hasn’t shifted from when he first entered the league, “I want to compete for a championship, get to the finals again, and hopefully win a championship for real.”
But after more than 12 years in the NBA, a Sixth Man of the Year award, and several return trips to the Philippines, he is shifting his focus to representing the country more than anything. Whether it’s through mentoring younger players, spending time with family, or representing the Philippines, he has found meaning in the spaces where basketball intersects with identity. In many ways, that chapter of his story is still being written, but Jordan already knows what he wants the final version to say. Not just that he played at the highest level, but that in every game and in every trip home, he carried his family, his culture, and his people with him.
See more of this story in the Anniversary Issue of Vogue Philippines, available at the link below.
By GABRIEL YAP. Photographs by DAVID URBANKE. Styling by CHARLIE WARD. Editor DANYL GENECIRAN. Producer: Julian Rodriguez. Styling: Charlie Ward at See Management. Grooming: Seiya Iibuchi using Circa1970beauty and M.A.C Cosmetics. Photography Assistant: Emerson Scheerer.
