Love of the game, not potential Olympic glory, brings Jimmer Fredette back to 3x3 basketball

Jimmer Fredette, shown cheering on his U.S. teammates during the 2024 Paris Olympics, is back playing 3x3 basketball. (Marc Atkins/Getty Images) The 2028 Summer Olympics are in Los Angeles.

>The opportunity to represent the United States - one more time - in those Games, this time on home soil, offers Glens Falls native Jimmer Fredette a tantalizing reward as he makes his comeback to 3x3 basketball.

>He values that. He won't deny that.

>But it's not what this is all about.

>"The Olympics," Fredette, 37, said this week after coming out of retirement earlier this month, "can't be the main driver."

>He added, wryly: "We saw how that turned out."

>That remark is in reference to the 2024 Paris Games, when Fredette - then the world's top-ranked player - led the U.S. team into the competition with the plan to secure the country's first gold medal in men's 3x3 basketball. Those Games appeared to align to create a triumphant swan song to an incredible basketball career.

>Once a high-scoring Section 2 star, Fredette generated "Jimmermania" during his storied BYU career, then made millions of dollars playing professionally after becoming a lottery pick in the 2011 NBA Draft. Serving as America's ambassador to the growing 3x3 version of the sport offered a fitting finale for Fredette, a 6-foot-2 guard for whom the basketball community's affection never evaporated, even as his professional career didn't reach the heights of his magical college days.

>And, then … Fredette got hurt.

>Early in pool play in Paris, Fredette suffered an adductor injury. It sidelined him, and the USA Basketball men's national 3x3 team stumbled to a 2-5 mark at the tournament it had planned on winning. Amid a long recovery, Fredette eventually announced his retirement and took on the role of leading USA Basketball's 3x3 men's program, a position he maintained until last week.

>For a good while, Fredette was positive his playing career was complete. The 2011 national Player of the Year in men's college basketball, whose six-year NBA career saw him play for five teams, was content.

>He was getting healthier, too. It took him about 10 months to fully recover from his injury and he'd started running with the goal of completing a half-marathon. Along the way, he added weight-lifting and sprinting into his workouts … and, eventually, after a while, basketball.

>Fredette said his wife, Whitney, always had expected he'd return to playing competitive basketball. He swears returning to the court, at first, was much simpler.

>"They're good workouts. Let's just keep doing them," he told himself, "because they feel good."

>Up until early this summer, Fredette said he hadn't seriously entertained making a comeback. With the blessing of his wife - "You absolutely need to do this" - that changed a few months ago, as the father of three young children realized the window to play again wouldn't stay open forever.

>"It's going to be now," Fredette told himself, "or never."

>In mid-September, after working his way back into playing shape, Fredette and USA Basketball officially announced his return. Instead of the half-marathon he'd planned to run this month, he competed this past weekend with Team Miami - the 3x3 squad he helped found - at the FIBA 3x3 Phoenix Challenger to break what turned out to be a hiatus of approximately two years from active competition.

>He said he wasn't nervous about returning to action, but wasn't sure how well he'd play. Upon announcing the end of his retirement, Fredette said "several" traditional, 5-on-5 teams reached out to gauge his interest in playing for them, which he found "funny," since he hasn't played that version of the sport in years.

>How could they know, he wondered, if he'd still be any good?

>With 3x3 - his basketball passion now for several years - he was confident he could still contribute. Rather than star, though, Fredette said his goal is to "be supplemental" for his team.

>But, naturally, in his return to the court, he earned MVP honors and led Team Miami to a 5-0 record in winning the Phoenix event.

>"Pretty sore," Fredette said, "but I was happy to be back out there."

>This weekend, Fredette, who lives in Littleton, Colo., is playing with his team in China. The travel and schedule of 3x3 basketball make for a grueling combination, one that's a far cry from the glamour associated with life in the NBA.

>"That's how 3x3 works," said Fredette, who left Wednesday for this weekend's action.

>That's OK with him.

>More than OK, really.

>"I'm not in this for the money or anything like that," Fredette said. "It's just because I enjoy the sport and want to compete."

>A return to traditional basketball, Fredette said, didn't interest him because "it doesn't excite me like 3x3 does now." There are tournaments and championships in the 3x3 realm that he wants to win.

>And, of course, there are the Olympics just less than two years away.

>"Obviously," Fredette said, "I'd love to make another run at that."

>Playing in the 2028 Olympics might prove to be how this latest, and likely final, chapter ends for one of the Capital Region's greatest basketball careers.

>But they're not the point of it.

>In a career filled with incredible highs, as well as its share of lows, the 2007 Glens Falls High School graduate knows the story he is telling.

>"This," Fredette said, "is about enjoying the game again."

SubscribeThere’s more to Albany with the Times Union. Subscribe today for just 25¢.This article originally published at Love of the game, not potential Olympic glory, brings Jimmer Fredette back to 3x3 basketball.