If you thought you’d already been dowsed with and drowned in your fill and flood of Jimmer Fredette this, Jimmer Fredette that, Jimmer Fredette here, Jimmer Fredette there, Jimmer Fredette everywhere, and you thought after JimmerMania morphed and simmered into a failed NBA career that silence now — OK, after that 75-point game over in China — was golden, that you were done with it, that Jimmer would just fade away into an office job somewhere, anywhere … uh, not so fast.
He’s baaaaaaaack.
For now at least.
The long-bombing baby-faced killer from BYU all those years ago, from 2007 to 2011, who grabbed both college basketball and sports headlines across the country by the throat and throttled them about with those boy-next-door looks and his incredible shooting, whose pro career, at least the NBA part of it, bombed, too, is attempting to make his mark again at the Paris Olympics, leading Team USA in 3X3 basketball.
If you don’t know what 3X3 basketball is … yeah, you do. It’s the kind of ball you played down at the church gym or over on your buddy Billy’s driveway when you were a kid — half-court, changed possessions required to go back behind the arc, first team to 21 wins, counting made shots by one point, unless they land from deep, then they’re worth two.
Fredette, at 35, is neck deep in that brand of hoops now. When you think about it, it suits his game perfectly — preposterous shooting from distance, without NBA defensive talent interrupting his shot creation, being even more valuable than it is in 5-on-5. In this particular environment, in an Olympic tournament that potentially gains the same gold for the United States as LeBron, Steph and the fellas over in the more traditional tournament are going for, Jimmer is — or at least might become — a star again. NBC and other media outlets are highlighting him and — who knows? — maybe Snoop Dogg and all the other celebs hanging around Paris will cheer him on.
It’s all bringing back deep-buried memories for many of us.
Don’t get me wrong, His Jimmership is hard to dislike. He was a good dude back then, and he’s likely a good dude now. At a wedding reception of a mutual friend a few years ago, sitting side by side at a table, I once carelessly failed to recognize him, even though I had interviewed him a thousand times before, and introduced myself. He looked at me with no putting on of airs, no presumption at all, and said, “I’m Jimmer Fredette.” And then, we laughed. As I said, good dude.
He’s pretty much a normal human — married, has three young children, he’s living a good life, albeit one that didn’t turn out basketball-wise the way he and so many BYU fans imagined it would.
You know the story: After being named the college game’s National Player of the Year, rising to the aforementioned heights of fame reserved typically for only the most superlative talents, the 6-foot-2 guard from Glens Falls, N.Y., blew through the Sacramento Kings, the Chicago Bulls, the New Orleans Pelicans, the New York Knicks, the Phoenix Suns and, for all I know the San Miguel Beermen, before some Cougar fans finally stopped blaming coaches and circumstances and came around to realizing that he wasn’t good enough to play and stay in the NBA.
He was somehow good enough to garner the country’s attention, showing up for games looking like the Boy Scout who used to earn merit badges by picking up trash around the neighborhood and helping grandmas across the street, then putting on amazing shooting exhibitions, despite his lack of size and athleticism. You remember — beating Kawhi Leonard’s San Diego State team with 43 points, putting 47 points on Utah at the Huntsman, and 52 on New Mexico in the conference tournament.
It was far from just the locals who took notice. Everyone was in the Jimmer pool. Songs were being written about him. Videos were being made. I was in a sports bar in Denver once, and when somebody on an NBA team hit a game-winning 30-foot shot, a group of guys huddled in front of the TV started shouting, “Jimmer! Jimmer!”
I remember the day a certain sports editor summoned me and another columnist at The Salt Lake Tribune into his office and pronounced that he wanted one of us, from that moment on, to be in attendance at every BYU game, home and away, through the end of the season. I was writing a column in a gym at a freaking BYU-Air Force game in Colorado Springs the shocking night Jerry Sloan had his blowup with Deron Williams in Salt Lake City. As I flew home the next morning, I learned that Jerry was quitting the Jazz.
But the Jimmer stuff had to be covered.
It was big, big, big.
And, not surprisingly, through no fault of his own, more than a few people started to get a bit sick of Jimmer. They got Jimmer’d out. In fact, Jimmer got Jimmer’d out. He reached a point of exasperation when he wouldn’t leave his apartment unless he had to, all on account of, as he said it, “getting mobbed” by fans.
Well. Fame is fleeting, especially when the spotlights grow dim.
Such was the Jimmer effect, that they’ve never completely burned out. Fredette had his run in China, which was rather remarkable, considering he averaged north of 40 points a game. A lot of NBA players couldn’t have done that, even against the downgraded competition. But few American basketball fans care much about what happens on the court in Shanghai. As Fredette’s name and game began to fade away, two years ago, he got new life by being asked to join Team USA in an effort to qualify in the 3X3 competition for these Olympics. He’s thrived in that role.
And the renown that never wholly exited stage right for Fredette is returning in moderate amounts. In the run-up to the Paris Games, he was featured by NBC in a profile, one that led with this anecdote:
“There are athletes who get recognized in public, and there are athletes who literally stop traffic. Even a decade removed from the height of his fame as a college basketball star, Jimmer Fredette is among the latter.
“On a recent picture-perfect day in Marseille, France, Fredette decided to walk the one mile to his team’s practice ahead of the FIBA 3X3 World Tour, a sport that was added to the Olympics in 2020. Packed with vacationers that late May afternoon, cars sped past heading to and from the beautiful Mediterranean beaches.
“Then, everything halted.
“A man on a motorized bike pulled up next to Fredette and shut off the gas in the middle of the street.
“’Is that Jimmer?’ he yelled to the sidewalk as irate drivers honked behind him. ‘Jimmer! Jimmer!’
“‘Get your bike and bring it over,’ Team USA 3X3 coach Joe Lewandowski, standing next to Fredette, called back, hoping to ease the tensions. ‘He comes over and wants a picture. This happens all the time.’”
It will happen more now.
At least for now.
Fredette is the undisputed leader of Team USA’s 3X3 squad, which needs to find its footing after losing the first two games of the competition to Serbia and Poland. Will anyone really give serious thought to an NBA washout hooping it up in 3X3 basketball? Ask the guy on the motorbike in Marseille. If medal-winning swimmers and fencers and mountain bikers and divers and wrestlers and breakdancers and skateboarders gain fame there, Fredette, with his head start, might gain it, regain it, a lot of it, too.
Yeah, Team USA would love to see JimmerMania resurrected in France. Sacre bleu! Fredette, after all, is a French name, right? And even if you grew weary of so much Fredette fame — Jimmer this, Jimmer that, Jimmer here, Jimmer there, Jimmer everywhere — all those years ago, it’ll be good, it’ll be OK.
