Everybody worries about the “face of the franchise” these days.

Jordan Clarkson’s face is young, earnest, oft-decorated with a smile. It is also not the issue. What Clarkson brings are the new legs of the Lakers.

Clarkson unwittingly got them in NBA shape by running around the tracks of San Antonio. He was a triple-champion in AAU meets before he became a teenager. His dad, Mike, was out there with him, because Mike didn’t want Jordan playing basketball, didn’t enjoy his own hoop experience when he began at UNLV. Besides, this way, Jordan didn’t have to ask for the ball.

“Track is something you do by yourself,” Clarkson said after Monday’s practice, as the Lakers prepared for a long, unpredictable road that begins tonight against Minnesota at Staples Center.

“All that stuff is self-motivation. That’s some hard stuff. Nobody is around, I’m running around in a circle, and Texas gets hot. On Saturday mornings, it’s cooking out there.”

In the ninth grade, Clarkson began handling a basketball full-time. Since then he has been lapping expectations. That continued last season, when Clarkson was a bright jewel submerged in the Lakers’ landfill, making the NBA’s All-Rookie team and averaging 11.7 points even though he was a second-round draft choice.

Those around the Lakers are discussing a nascent Big Three of Clarkson, Julius Randle and D’Angelo Russell as Kobe Bryant goes through his goodbyes. But Randle is coming off a knee injury that wiped out his rookie season, and Russell is a rookie himself, and wasn’t a particularly steady one when last seen in the NBA Summer League. The Lakers have to rely on Clarkson, and hope his legs don’t get tired.

“I felt the game slow down a lot in the second half,” Clarkson said. “It could slow down a lot more. Seeing plays, seeing where I could get my shots, and then breaking everything down film-wise.”

Clarkson scored 20 or more points in six of the last 10 Lakers games, only two of which were wins. Against Oklahoma City on March 24, he shot 12 for 19 and put up 30 points.

Speed gets Clarkson to the optimum spots. Knowledge makes him more dangerous when he gets there. He averaged 16.7 points after the All-Star break and shot 47.9 percent.

This is the battle that track and field faces, and loses. Its top young performers know where the money is, knows what ESPN prefers to program, and what it doesn’t. When Clarkson was nine years old he ran the 400 meters in 1:08.1. That was a record in San Antonio’s CYO program, and he was nationally ranked in his age group.

“But it still came down to running around a circle,” said Clarkson, who must realize the Lakers will be running the same dogged 360 for a while.

“That’s probably the reason I gave it up. I had to change sports, but the self-motivation followed me to basketball, helped me tremendously. That’s the first thing that came easy in basketball, beating people down the court, getting into people. Using God’s gifts. Your mind is going 100 percent. What I had to do was slow down and see the game.’

Over the summer Clarkson worked out three times a day, refining his rainbow jumper with the help of skills coach Drew Hanlen. He also got a hand from Thomas Scott, Byron’s son and a member of the Lakers skill development team.

Clarkson has become accustomed to surprising people. After he and future Colorado standout Andre Roberson kept leading Karen Wagner High deep into state tournaments, Clarkson signed with Tulsa and became the best player there. When Doug Wojcik was fired, Tulsa would not release Clarkson from his scholarship. Mike Clarkson, an Air Force veteran, said he’d pay for Jordan to play at another school, and finally Missouri took him. Clarkson sat out a year and practices against the likes of former Lakers teammate Jabari Brown, then became the Tigers’ best player, too.

The draft came along, and teams who took Jordan Adams, P.J. Hariston, Cleanthony Early and Rodney Hook could have taken Clarkson.

He wasn’t much of a Spurs fan when he grew up in San Antonio, but his mother worked at a hotel on the Riverwalk, so Clarkson got an up-close seat for the 1999 championship parade. The Lakers held the next three parades, and two later, but now a mere trip to the playoffs would represent outrageous progress. It will take all the legwork Clarkson can stand.