Memphis Grizzlies forward Brandon Clarke has died at age 29. Priority Sports, the agency that represented the former San Jose State star, and the Grizzlies announced his death Tuesday. No cause of death was given.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are all beyond devastated by the passing of Brandon Clarke,\u201d Priority Sports wrote in a statement. \u201cHe was so loved by all of us here, and everyone whose life he touched. He was the gentlest soul who was the first to be there for all of his friends and family. Our hearts are so broken as we think about his mom, Whitney, his entire family, and all of his friends and teammates. From high school to San Jose State to Gonzaga to the Grizzlies, Brandon impacted everyone who was part of his life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarke played his first two seasons of college basketball (2015-16 and 2016-17) in the Bay Area, averaging 17.3 points, 8.7 rebounds, 2.6 blocks and 1.2 steals per game for the Spartans during his breakout sophomore season. He then transferred to Gonzaga before being drafted No. 21 overall (in the first round) in 2019 by the Oklahoma City Thunder, who subsequently traded him to Memphis. Clarke played all seven seasons of his NBA career with the Grizzlies, appearing in 309 games and scoring 10.2 points per game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are devastated to learn of the passing of Brandon Clarke,\u201d NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. \u201cAs one of the longest-tenured members of the Grizzlies, Brandon was a beloved teammate and leader who played the game with enormous passion and grit. Our thoughts and sympathies are with Brandon\u2019s family, friends and the Grizzlies organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarke was arrested in Arkansas last month on several charges, including for improper passing, possession and trafficking of a controlled substance, as well as fleeing and exceeding the speed limit in a vehicle, according to multiple reports citing a Cross County Sheriff\u2019s Department booking on April 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Memphis Grizzlies forward Brandon Clarke has died at age 29. Priority Sports, the agency that represented the former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[43417,1815,1327,54207,88,90,89,127],"class_list":["post-312524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-jose","tag-brandon-clarke","tag-college","tag-college-sports","tag-san-francisco-state-university","tag-san-jose","tag-san-jose-headlines","tag-san-jose-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}