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Toronto • There was Jimmer Fredette as you might remember him: basketball in his hands, pulling up from unconscionable distances, hitting from unconscionable distances, taking over a game, feeling it.
There were shouts from the crowd as he heated it up, urging him to keep firing away. There was a chant of "MVP! MVP!" as he headed to the free throw line to seal the win in his first all-star game as a pro.
Still, it could not have been exactly what Fredette imagined for himself.
By the time he took the court on Saturday morning, the NBA All-Stars had wrapped up their morning practice and the crowd in the small arena had thinned substantially. Just a few hundred people stayed behind to watch the D-League All-Stars play.
But all Fredette hopes for now is one person to see him and give him another chance to play at the game's highest level.
"Every single night I just try to go out there and play the best that I can — not necessarily [for] validation but just to show people I can still play," said Fredette, the star of the D-League's Westchester Knicks. "Hopefully people are able to see that."
It has been five years since the height of "Jimmer Mania," when Fredette was college basketball's player of the year, scoring nearly 29 points per game and leading BYU to the Sweet 16. Back then, when a former coach visited him in Provo to watch a game, he went witnessed the pandemonium that followed Fredette everywhere.
"People would just crowd around the car," former Glens Falls High School coach Tony Hammel recalled. "We had to stop the car a couple times for him to get out and sign some autographs. He was like a rockstar."
Things haven't followed the script since. Fredette bounced from Sacramento to Chicago to New Orleans in his first four seasons as a pro. Last fall, he was cut by the Spurs in training camp. His last taste of the NBA was a 10-day contract with the Pelicans earlier this season; he played a total of 13 minutes.
So far, Fredette has yet to prove his doubters wrong. There's no question the former BYU star can shoot, but he has to show he can overcome his size and athleticism to stick as an NBA regular.
Still, he said he believes he could given the right chance.
"For a lot of guys in the NBA … it's about finding that right fit, a coach that has some trust in you, that will play you night in and night out consistently," Fredette said. "And trying to find the right fit is the tough part."
"He's just got to keep working," Westchester teammate Jordan Bachynski said. "There are so many things that he does well, but so much of the NBA is just about timing. Obviously you've got to work hard and get better every day. … But so much of it is just about timing and team needs."
For now, Fredette said he is embracing his time in the D-League and the opportunity to try to earn another shot at the game's highest level.
"You just continue to live your life day by day and go out and give it the full effort," Fredette said. "Obviously I would love to be back in the NBA. Everybody wants to be in the NBA. That's the whole goal and I'm no different than that. So I'm going to work every single day to try to make it back."
In Westchester, he's averaging 22.6 points per game and shooting better than 42 percent from 3-point territory — and those who are rooting for his comeback have been heartened by his approach.
"He handles it great," said Hamel, who still messages Fredette every other week or so. "A lot of people would be frustrated by now and probably would have given up. … I think he just enjoys playing the game. He's into a routine. He's getting minutes."
On Saturday, Fredette was all smiles after his first All-Star weekend experience. On the court, he found his groove early. He curled around a screen and knocked down his first shot of the game and kept going from there. He finished with 35 points — a D-League All-Star Game record — on 13-of-19 shooting and claimed MVP honors.
But the real reward, he hoped, would come later.
"You're always hopeful," Fredette said. "Everybody in this league, that's what their dream is."
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