In the “emperor has no clothes” category, boxing division, we have Manny Pacquaio, elite pugilist, apparently being told by so many fawning people that he can play professional basketball … that he is attempting to do so.

This, when anyone paying attention knows that the 5-foot-6, 36-year-old fighter is, at best, a decent pickup-game player.

Pacquiao scored his first point in a Phillipines Basketball Association game last week, and when an American on the opposing team said Manny in a PBA game was “a joke” … his team cut him and the league fined him.

Rene Pardo, the top executive of the Purefoods Hotshots team, said yes, Daniel Orton was released for insulting Pacquaio.

“Everyone is angry at him,” a Philippines news website reported Pardo as saying. “It is like he went to the United Sates and insulted the name of Martin Luther King.”

Hmm.

Pacquiao coaches the expansion Kia Carnival team, as well as occasionally playing for it — and he can’t be much of a coach if he’s putting himself into a game.

He has said he will continue to play basketball while he begins training for his highly anticipated fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr., on May 2.

In his third appearance on the court, he made the second of two free throws in the game against Purefoods — leading to a big reaction from the crowd, as can be seen/heard on the video at this link. He also had an assist — and threw up an air ball from three-point distance.

When the game was over, someone asked Orton, a 6-foot-10 former NBA first-round draft pick, what he thought of Pacman, the hoopster.

“Professional boxer, yeah, OK … professional basketball player, no,” Orton said. “It’s a joke.”

That led to his being released by Purefoods and fined 250,000 pesos ($5,650) by the league … because a person just can’t talk about Manny like that.

Which led to the ridiculous MLK reference from the team exec.

Let’s see, criticizing a man who beats up people for a living is equivalent to mocking the non-violent civil rights hero Martin Luther King.

And it wasn’t just the club’s top guy getting after Orton. The league’s commissioner piled on.

“This office disapproves of and frowns upon the cavalier manner in which Mr Orton issued his comments and the unwarranted antics and liberties he has taken with the league and a fellow player,” said the PBA commissioner, Chito Salud.

Thankfully, not everyone involved with Philippines basketball has lost his mind.

AFP quoted a former Philippines basketball official, Chino Trinidad, as saying of hoopsman Pacman:

“He is not basketball material. Pacquiao is so gullible, he thinks he belongs. If he wants to become the butt of jokes, so be it.”

He added: “The league is supposed to be a dream factory for kids. But it turns out, you can buy your way into it. The problem with us Filipinos is we accommodate Pacquiao so much.”

Pacquaio is also a national congressman who, AFP reported, attended only four of 34 legislative sessions last year, suggesting pro basketball isn’t the only job he’s not up to handling.

Not that anyone will say it … for fear of being expelled from the country.

And how did Orton, the sassy American, take it?

With class.

“I thank God for my time in the Philippines and thank Purefoods for everything,” he tweeted today. “I wish the team the best of luck.”