Jimmer makes this look easy.
With every passing game, the legend of Jimmer Fredette grows.
The electrifying BYU guard started the year as a consensus All-American pick, and he’s justifying the lofty expectations. He leads the nation in scoring (26.7 per game), and has had three games of 40 or more points just this month. (He just missed a fourth at UNLV on January 5 with 39 points.) He seems to be able to hit from anywhere on the floor, often pulling up from well beyond the three-point arc for flawless jumpers. He even hit a half-court heave as part of his 47 point torching of Utah on January 11.
And just last night, he went off for 43 points to help put away previously unbeaten #4 San Diego State. After the game, NBA stars like Jared Dudley (“That boy Jimmer Fredette be hooping”), John Wall (“Jimmer Fredette is cold! #respect), and Kevin Durant (“Jimmer Fredette is the best scorer in the world!!”) showered him with praise.
So yeah, Jimmer’s pretty good. But destroying players from Vermont and Chicago State is one thing. Do Fredette’s skills translate to the NBA level?
It’s a tricky question to answer. Obviously, even the best competition at the college level is nothing like the NBA. Virtually every NBA player was an outstanding college player, so if he’s struggling to get his shot off against elite players, he’s likely to have a difficult time at the next level. However, a talented San Diego State team threw everything they had at him, and they weren’t even able to slow him down. More than once, defenders would beg coach Steve Fisher to be taken out, completely gassed trying to keep up with him (though some of that was due to the difficulty of playing at altitude).
Another big concern leveled at Fredette is his defense. It’s one thing to be a dominant scorer, but that’s just half the game. He’d be lucky to see half his scoring average in the NBA, so he’d need to come up with some solid play on defense to merit a roster spot. Yet this doesn’t have scouts as concerned as you might think. Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski reported that one executive watching last night’s game mentioned that it’s easier to teach a player defense than to teach him to shoot like Jimmer does. You don’t have to look any further than this year’s Chicago Bulls to find an example of a mediocre team suddenly becoming solid on defense with a little bit of coaching.
Essentially, nobody knows whether Fredette can be a productive NBA player. He could go one of two ways if he’s drafted next year. On the positive side, he could turn out to be like Davidson’s Stephen Curry. Curry virtually won three NCAA tournament games by himself in 2008, ousting favored Gonzaga, Georgetown, and Wisconsin before narrowly falling to eventual champion Kansas. Curry was a dynamic scorer who didn’t play much defense, and he faced concerns that he wouldn’t be able to get his shot off in the NBA.
Anyone who’s paid attention to the NBA over the last couple of years knows that Curry turned out just fine. He might be the only untouchable player on a subpar Warriors team (and that includes phenom Monta Ellis) and is one of the best young point guards in the league. Curry’s even a player in the new NBA Jam, for crying out loud.
The concern, though, is that Jimmer won’t turn out like Curry, but rather like Gonzaga’s Adam Morrison. Like Curry and Fredette, Morrison was a scoring machine during his college career, even being named co-national player of the year in 2006. However, he had a subpar rookie season for the Charlotte Bobcats, tore his ACL the next year, and was traded to the Lakers in 2009, where he rode the bench for two years. He’s now out of the league.
Personally, I think there’s a third player that he should try to emulate in his NBA career: J.J. Redick. Redick was the other co-player of the year in 2006, and he’s enjoyed a successful career as a role player for the Orlando Magic. Rather than trying to be the scoring menace he was at Duke, he carved out a spot for himself as a spot-up three point shooter, similar to Ray Allen’s role for the Boston Celtics. He doesn’t need to dominate the ball or generate headlines to be a devastating weapon for his team.
But no matter how he turns out next year, it’s clear that we’re seeing something spectacular this year. BYU fans will long cherish memories of Jimmer shaking defenders, burying impossible threes, and hitting absurd circus shots. And for one night, all of America got to join in with them.
Well, except for San Diego.
You can follow Sam on Twitter at @TheRealSamOrme, or you can tell him what a ridiculous Mormon-hugging Jimmer fanboy he is in the comments section below.
You ridiculous Mormon hugging Jimmer fanboy :)