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Fredette has been announced as the new Managing Director of 3x3 basketball for Team USA. "When USA Basketball approached me about this role, I jumped at it," Fredette started. "I’m determined to help build a sustainable program for years to come and, ultimately, the best 3x3 program in the world."
Jeff Teague on Olympics 3x3: My BIG3 squad could have beaten Team USA
Jeff Teague, who is a former NBA player, says that he watched Team USA and thinks his BIG3 squad could've beaten them. “I’ve seen Jimmer Fredette and that team, we would’ve beat them, if you let us practice. Because they practice for that s—t. You don’t really practice for the BIG3, you go the day before, you get some shots up and you go play,” Teague said on his podcast. “If you gave us a whole year to practice plays, and run out to the three-point line, and play with an NBA Basketball, or an Olympic basketball, we probably could’ve run that s—t.”
Former BYU star Jimmer Fredette provided an injury update on his status after Team USA 3×3 was eliminated from the Olympics on Sunday. Fredette announced on Instagram that he “tore two different ligaments completely” in his adductor. That injury, which occurred in the opening minutes of Team USA’s second game of pool play against Poland, sidelined him for the remainder of the games. Fredette went on to say that recovery time will be around six months.
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The roster for the U.S. men’s team says it all: Jimmer Fredette is the lone recognizable name from his days as a college star nearly 15 years ago. There’s also a recent high school teacher in Dylan Travis, a current Timberwolves front office exec Kareem Maddox, and former Florida guard Canyon Barry. The United States women take 3x3 more seriously with good WNBA players (Dearica Hamby and Rhyne Howard are on the roster, and Cameron Brink was supposed to be before her ACL tear) headlining the team, but they certainly haven’t looked like a serious operation so far in Paris.
Two summers ago, USA Basketball sent an old college coach to try to reel in a big-name recruit. Fran Fraschilla journeyed to Denver in hopes of persuading Jimmer Fredette to leave traditional 5-on-5 basketball behind and to reinvent himself as the world’s most famous 3x3 player. Since 3x3 players are required to accumulate points on the world tour in order to be eligible to play for their countries in the Olympics, USA Basketball could not simply select LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and be done with it. It had to scramble to find players passed on by NBA and top-tier overseas clubs yet talented enough to challenge for a medal.
Fredette by then was in the twilight of his well-chronicled journey from BYU folk hero, to NBA flop, to basketball nomad. He had yo-yoed between the G League, Greece and China for five years before declining lucrative offers in order to take a year-long break from professional basketball and devote more time to his wife and three young children. Over cheeseburgers and iced teas in June 2022, Fraschilla asked the then 33-year-old Fredette to bring Jimmermania to 3x3 basketball. Fraschilla told Fredette that 3x3 had made its Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2021, that Team USA had failed to qualify and that Fredette could lead the push to right that wrong if he was willing to be away from his family for six to eight weekends the following year. “My brain is always calculating who might be good at the sport,” Fraschilla, a senior advisor to USA Basketball, told Yahoo Sports. “I knew he still had game and I knew he was competitive, so I just took a shot.”
To Fredette, 3x3 basketball was faintly reminiscent of the half-court pickup games he played as a kid, only faster, bruisingly physical and more strategic. The winning team was the first to 21 or whoever led after a single 10-minute period. Baskets were worth two points from behind the arc or one point from inside it. Fraschilla’s pitch intrigued Fredette because 3x3 provided the competitive outlet he craved and a schedule that afforded him year-round family time. It also helped that Fredette is a lifelong Olympics junkie who dreamed of winning a gold medal even before he took aim at a Final Four or an NBA title. By the end of his lunch with Fraschilla, Fredette was already making plans to dive into a variant of basketball he previously didn’t know existed. To Fredette, this obscure sport was his best chance to extend his career and give his tangled basketball odyssey a joyful ending.
And now Tuesday, Fredette, along with three teammates — Canyon Barry, Kareem Maddox and Dylan Travis — will begin a quest for gold in Paris. “As soon as I heard ‘Olympics,’ I was like, ‘I'm all in,’” Fredette said. “I saw this as the opportunity of a lifetime.”
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You were drafted immediately after your senior season in 2011. What was that adjustment process like of going from the level of notoriety and fandom you had in college to being a rookie? Jimmer Fredette: Yeah, it was different. The year when I got drafted was actually during the lockout so I didn’t even get a chance to go play in summer league that year. We didn’t get to go to the facility and practice with any of the guys or anything like that until November when they said the lockout was over. All of a sudden they told us to come to the facility, we had a week, and then we started to play games. It was crazy. The level of athleticism, the level of talent, the height, the length is all just different than college. There was definitely an adjustment period and it took a little bit of time to figure that out. Once you get into it and keep playing, you start to adjust and figure out where you can get your shots and what you can do on the court. But it definitely was a big adjustment. They don’t care who you are on the court. It doesn’t matter if you were college player of the year or anything.
I want to walk down memory lane a little bit with you. I’m going to give you a word and I want you to give me one word back to describe each of these experiences and why. Starting with the Sacramento Kings. Jimmer Fredette: Learning process. It was just such a different time period for me to go into the NBA. The game, the organization that they were at the time, they were trying to sell the team and ownership was not there. My coach got fired two weeks into the season so I felt a lot of stuff right away and so did our whole team. I had to learn quickly that this is a business not a college type thing. This is the NBA. You have to adapt and be able to do that all the time.
Chicago Bulls. Jimmer Fredette: I’d say electric. It was super fun. I love the team that we played on. We had a veteran group of guys with Joakim Noah, Taj Gibson, Kirk Hinrich, and Derrick Rose. All of these guys played extremely well in the NBA and they knew what to do. The atmosphere in the arena was amazing. They played the Chicago Bulls theme song when you’d walk out and you have starting lineups, and you just think of Jordan and all those guys. Chicago fans love their sports, it was always packed, and they know who you were.
Can you talk about the challenges in staying prepared when you’re not getting play time? There’s so much time and sacrifice that goes into it but to not reap the benefits I imagine is mentally challenging. Jimmer Fredette: It’s really hard, especially when you haven’t been in that situation before. Usually guys that are in the NBA have never been in that situation before because they’ve always been the best player on all of their teams growing up—that’s how they got there. Once you get there, you have to conform and adapt. It’s a fine balance of trying to figure out okay, how much do I need to work out today versus am I going to play tonight? You need to leave something in the tank so that if you do play, you can actually be ready and prepared to play. A lot of it has to do with being prepared mentally. You have to stay locked in, even if you don’t feel like you’re going to play because you never know when you’re going to get an opportunity to do that. It’s not easy, but it’s a part of being professional.
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