Jimmer Fredette Alive And Still Shooting As USA Gets FIBA Silver

Jimmer Fredette, who starred at BYU some 15 years ago, is still balling.

The former shooting star for the Cougars was told he was too slow, couldn't play defense and would never make it at the highest level of basketball.

But James Taft Fredette never gave up on his hoop dreams.

This week Fredette helped the USA three-on-three team take the silver medal at the FIBA Championships in Vienna, Austria.

A last-second shot by Fredette rimmed around and then out, keeping the USA millimeters from a gold medal. Serbia came away the ultimate champion. The Serbs have won six of eight iterations of the 3X3 World Cup.

As for Fredette, he scored 50 points in seven games (the games were played as first team to 21, with Serbia winning 21-19 in the finals). Only tourney MVP Strahinja Stojacic scored more. The Serb finished with 55 points. Fredette, Stojacic and Latvia's Nauris Miezes were named the tourney's top players.

A lot of BYU fans are wondering what Fredette has been up to all these years.

The all-time Mountain West leading scorer was drafted 10th in the NBA by the Milwaukee Bucks, but was immediately traded to the Sacramento Kings, where he spent three seasons, playing sparingly. He did score a career-high 24 points in 2014.

Over the next couple of years, he bounced around the NBA and the D-League.

Finally, he decided to play in China, rather than sit on the bench in the NBA. He shot over 40 percent from beyond the arc in China and averaged more than 30 points per game in four seasons with the Shanghai Sharks.

In the last couple of years, the "fiercely competitive" Fredette has been focusing on three-on-three competitions with the ultimate goal to win gold at the 2024 Olympics representing the United States.

Oh. and the man dubbed the "Jimo Dashen" (which translates to "The Lonely Master") in China, also managed to find love (married wife Whitney in 2012) and family, with a daughter Wesley and son Taft.

Jimmer-mania is still alive around the world, both in Utah and in China.