June Mar Sotto Fajardo (Tagalog: [pɐˈhaɾdo]; born November 17, 1989) is a Filipino professional basketball player for the San Miguel Beermen of the Philippine Basketball Association (PBA). He is also known by his nickname "The Kraken" for his extraordinary size and finesse against opposing big men.[1]
Born in Compostela, he transferred with his parents to Pinamungajan at an early age, where he spent most of his younger and teen years. He played center for the University of Cebu Webmasters in the CESAFI and for the San Miguel Beermen in the ASEAN Basketball League before being selected as the first overall in the 2012 PBA draft by Petron Blaze Boosters. Despite his young age, Fajardo showed great potential and has been dubbed by local sports analysts as the Future of Philippine basketball. During his rookie season, he played for the national team and earned a silver medal at the 2013 FIBA Asia Championship for Gilas Pilipinas. In his first year in the PBA, he was selected to the All-Rookie Team and Second Mythical Team. Since then, he became the first person in league history to win the PBA Most Valuable Player award in six consecutive seasons, which he won from 2014 to 2019. After suffering a career-threatening injury in 2020, he won back-to-back MVPs in 2023 and 2024 to extend his record for the most PBA MVP awards with eight.
He is a perennial member of Gilas Pilipinas in international competitions since 2013 and was also part of the team who won the gold medal in the 2022 Asian Games.
- ^ "The 5 best nicknames in the PBA today". FOX Sports Philippines. June 15, 2018. Archived from the original on December 24, 2019. Retrieved December 24, 2019.