Jimmer Fredette’s Future: NBA Fame or Obscurity?

The magical run is over for my favorite college basketball player Jimmer Fredette, not even Gus Johnson could save Fredette’s immediate future in the NCAA tournament. How Fredette’s skill set will translate to the NBA remains to be seen but let’s speculate.  Fredette has been called “Mr. Clutch,” commended for his confidence in shooting 30-foot three pointers, and can take over most games when he wants. Sound familiar? Enter JJ Redick, who had every single one of these same accolades in a much more difficult conference, it’s a lot easier averaging 30+ a game against the Mountain West than the ACC. Redick was showing the nation the ridiculous threes Fredette is so often praised for years before but why do we forget about that? JJ Redick still holds the NCAA record for most 3-pointers in a college career (457) but what is the last significant basketball memory for Redick. Oh…

Or even better…

Redick was once regarded as the most dominant player in college basketball and now he can’t even guard players from lackluster sub-.500 teams. How can he fade from our memories so quickly? Sure, people always knocked JJ for his “lack of athletic ability” and subpar defensive skills but praised him for his “pure shooting capability.” This is starting to sound all too familiar. Jimmer has one of the best shots I’ve seen in college basketball, better than JJ’s, but a more fair comparison of Fredette to an NBA player would actually not be JJ Redick as so many people seem to think, it would actually be Redick’s Orlando Magic teammate Jameer Nelson. A scoring-first point guard who has to learn how to facilitate the ball, something Fredette, nor Nelson when he first entered the league, has never had to do but is it their fault?

People are crushing Jimmer for being a ballhog in the Florida game Thursday night but honestly who was he going to pass it to? His one good teammate was kicked off the team, let’s pass it to the guys who are shooting 33% versus the best player on the team. Admittedly, Jimmer was not having his best shooting night (38%) but that stat is inflated by the many shot he was forced to attempt to keep his team in the game. Florida would not allow Jimmer to shoot the three, he was only 3-15 in the game but you remove his three point field goals and attempts and Jimmer is a solid 57% shot for the game. Obviously, he took those shots and didn’t make them but it’s bombastic to think Jimmer was being a ballhog when there were really no other options.

All comparisons aside, Fredette will be good in the NBA, not great. He will never be Derrick Rose but with a superstar on his team, he can shine. My best description for Fredette in the NBA would be the “irrational confidence guy” on his team, the guy who thinks he’s a lot better than he is. Think John Starks on the Patrick Ewing New York Knicks, Stephon Marbury on basically every team he ever played, and Eddie House/Nate Robinson on last year’s Celtics team. He can be a game changer, but not all the time, just sometimes. But sometimes is good enough and I hope Jimmer will prove me wrong, but it’s not very likely. He’s this year’s Tim Tebow, never capable of leading a team to a championship, but with capable players surround him, he can make the difference, even if it’s only for a game.     

Why Brackets are Great (and Terrible)

March Madness creates great pandemonium for sports fans and journalists; Gus Johnson, buzzer beaters, and brackets are madness defined for sports (mostly Gus Johnson). The true secret to why people watch the tournament with such great fervor is those silly little brackets. Everyone knows it. Why do you think ESPN will have Doug Gottlieb and every other college basketball analyst talk Bracketology for fifteen minutes on Sportscenter? They know it’s what you want. Whose Richmond and what are their upsets of an upset? Can San Diego State go all the way? There are standards for filling out brackets. There’s always a 12-5 upset. Don’t have all 1’s in the Final Four (People loved that one last year). Try not to pick against your family members’ alma maters until forced to. People will fill multiple brackets with differing determinations and enter them into the same office pool in the hopes of winning a little extra cash. It is insane. And I absolutely love it.

I have only recently asked “The Madness” her hand in marriage. It began when my uncle, a Gonzaga alum, was watching those Bracketology shows, filling his bracket with hopes (Got to give the man credit, he won his office pool the year Florida won.) and wondered why I wasn’t doing the same. I explained how I had never been able to get into college basketball; I was more a Pro fan. However, I was curious to try my luck with this whole bracket deal. I watched a bit of the show with him, and mustering every ounce of college basketball knowledge I had, which was none, to fill out that silly, little bracket.  I suddenly became an intense viewer, watching more college basketball than I previously knew was possible. I remember being so proud of picking San Diego State as a 12 seed to upset whichever 5 seed they were playing. I also remember being absolutely crushed when they lost their next game, but here’s the secret: I didn’t even have them winning the next game. I had become so attached to a team that I didn’t know existed prior to being handed a blank bracket because they won me a small victory in the first round that didn’t have a true impact on the tournament. It doesn’t make sense, but it’s the same reason after bragging to my uncle about my previous genius in picking that upset, I erased a previous pick and changed it, all so I could proclaim my greatness some more. Of course in the end, he kicked my ass but I still had that one small upset.

Does no one else see how brackets cause such great madness in our country? I rooted for Michigan State last night more than I have ever cheered for my Florida State Seminoles before. I was more upset that the refs called traveling against Kalin Lucas than when Florida State kicker Dustin Hopkins kicked wide right against the North Carolina Tar heels to win the game. I even had UNC players taunting us fans in the stands yelling, “This is our house now, baby! Our house!” Hell, I’m still upset about that traveling call even when multiple replays confirm the call.

Whoever originally thought of giving fans brackets to fill, should be praised and cursed at the same time. It’s a terrible curse but I wouldn’t want “The Madness” any other way. 

By the way, my Final Four is Ohio State, Kansas, San Diego State, and St. John's (I had hope) with San Diego State winning it all.

The Fair Scrutiny of The Miami Heat

America loves drama. We love the spectacle of last minute heroics. Think of great sports’ moments and events like The Catch, any of Michael Jordan’s game winners, and even Landon Donovan’s stoppage time goal to beat Algeria last summer will come to mind. Reggie Miller became famous because of his ability to nail the shot in winning time (ESPN 30 for 30 pun intended) virtually against one team. Analysts will argue Ben Roethlisberger is a better quarterback than Dan Marino because of his crunch time performances. So when the Miami Heat can’t perform under the clutch, their team is going to become scrutinized by the media, but only because they want all the attention on themselves.   

Of course they’re going too far in saying the Miami Heat aren’t viable in the 2011 playoffs because everyone knows they are one of the best teams in basketball. However, it is a problem when your team has the worst field goal percentage (1-16) in the last 10 seconds of a game to either win or tie. Some Heat fans may argue that it’s only the regular season so it’s not indicative of the production in the postseason, but hitting a shot with 10 seconds left has nothing to do with regular season vs. postseason effort. It shouldn’t require any more effort or a presence of the moment for a player to do something he is paid millions of dollars to do and something he’s been doing for his entire life. Maybe it’s a problem that Michael Jordan was so good at claiming last second victories.  There’s now an unfair expectation for every self-proclaimed superstar to perform under the pressure; if they don’t, they’re seen as less of a player. That being said, the NBA has rapidly become a win-in-the-last minute league and if a team can’t keep pace, then they will fall from the top. Maybe a little unfair but what, are you going to go cry about it. Oh wait…

Crygate or better known as the media’s inability to name controversies without adding gate to the end of it. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra had one of the ultimate sports faux pas and told the media that “a couple of guys were crying after in the locker room after tonight’s loss.”

Now, every sports league is laughing at the Miami Heat and Lebron James and Dwayne Wade are attempting to defend their coach. It’s a joke. No crying in the regular season. Possibly if there’s a last second improbable loss in Game 7 of the NBA Finals but that’s it. The only man on the Heat team being genuine about their recent losing streak is Dwayne Wade in saying, “I don’t expect any sympathy from anyone. Media, fans, players…”

How can he? How can a team (read two and a half superstars) hold a pep rally with fireworks, a marching band, and dancers and proclaim they are going to win“five, six, seven, eight championships” and not expect other teams to play them hard each game? Why brag about selling out every away game and then question why the respective teams’ fans are taking shots at the Miami Heat any chance they get? What is there to gain when you call for “The Decision” to build media hype but only have that same media scrutinize every move, every game you play? The Heat wanted all of this, remember?

How about instead of dealing with the extracurricular activities that come with playing in the NBA, the Heat address the problems they are having on the court? Like, James’ and Wade’s inability to drive to the net against good teams because they ensure their defense forces James and Wade to beat them with their jump shot outside the paint. Teams recognize how uncomfortable James and Wade are with their jump shot, especially outside the three point range considering they are both below average three point shooters, so they use it to their advantage. Maybe they should consider their obvious lack of a big man down low, and how teams can focus more defenders forcing the outside shots by James and Wade. Is Chris Bosh the answer? Only if he receives the ball inside the paint, instead of expecting him to post up every time outside the paint which has generally resulted in him shooting an awkward fade away shot. Their supposed sharpshooters (Mike Miller, Eddie House, James Jones) that were key players on their previous teams can’t make a single shot but how can they provide any significant contribution when they play less than 10 minutes a game, if at all. Eddie House didn’t even play against the Portland Trail Blazers last night based on Erik Spoelstra’s decision.

The biggest question of all, is why the best shooters on the Heat are consistently on the bench when they need three point shots the most. Eddie House hit the three that won the game against the Oklahoma City Thunder in late January. Why is he not even playing? Because Mike Miller missed an open three against the Lakers last month, is he not capable of handling the big moment? Is Chris Bosh really the right guy to shoot the three against the Orlando Magic? I don’t know, these are questions that Head Coach Erik Spoelstra has to answer. Maybe he believes that the Big Three are the only ones capable of handling the drama of late game heroics. Because really that’s all sports boils down to sometimes, drama. Be it comments, crying, Winning Time, clutch time performers; sports is fed by the drama of the moment. That’s why we watch, not for the intricate defenses or the blowout wins, but for living in the drama of the moment only sports can provide.