Brandon Clarke, the Phoenix-raised forward who turned a winding path through San Jose State and Gonzaga into a seven-year NBA career with the Memphis Grizzlies, has died, the team and his agency, Priority Sports, announced Tuesday. He was 29.
Clarke died Monday, May 11. A cause of death has not been released.
Arizona roots
Long before he was a first-round pick, Clarke was a Desert Vista Thunder — a long, springy forward out of the Ahwatukee corner of Phoenix whose motor and finishing made him one of the more intriguing prospects to come out of the state in his class. He left Arizona for San Jose State, where he established himself as one of the most efficient post scorers and shot-blockers in the Mountain West before transferring to Gonzaga.
In his lone season in Spokane, Clarke was a consensus All-American, a West Coast Conference Player of the Year, and the engine of a Zags team that reached the Elite Eight — an Arizona kid playing the best basketball of his life on a national stage.
Seven seasons in Memphis
The Oklahoma City Thunder took Clarke 21st overall in the 2019 NBA Draft and traded him to Memphis two weeks later. He never wore another uniform.
As a rookie in the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 season, Clarke averaged 12.1 points and 5.9 rebounds across 58 games, earned NBA All-Rookie honors, and finished fourth in Rookie of the Year voting. He spent the next half-decade as one of the league's most efficient interior finishers and a quietly essential piece of Memphis' rotation through the franchise's recent playoff runs.
His final two seasons were shaped by injury. Clarke played 64 games in 2024-25 and appeared in just two games this season as he worked back from calf and knee issues.
An Arizona legacy
Clarke's path — Ahwatukee to San Jose to Spokane to Memphis — is the kind of arc Arizona basketball doesn't always get credit for producing. He leaves behind a state that watched him grow up on its high school floors, a college program he helped lift to the doorstep of a Final Four, and an NBA franchise that took one chance on him in 2019 and never had a reason to look back.
Funeral arrangements have not yet been made public.
