Sacramento Kings: Room For Jimmer Fredette
The NBA has found a few different ways to stay relevant throughout the summer. Draft coverage is as extensive as ever; a slew of high profile free agents over the last few years have made July’s free agency something even the most casual fans have to keep tabs on; and the Las Vegas Summer League has become the unofficial landing spot of every general manager, coach and reporter who cannot pull themselves away from the game for more than a couple weeks. Even with all that, though, August still serves as the NBA’s dry season. It is the brief period of withdrawal where even the most addicted NBA fiend has trouble finding a fix. One can dare to fixate their attentions to NBA-TV, but if you are not careful that path may lead to an involuntary coma at the hands of WNBA action or watching “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals” for the 10th time in five days (great documentary, but I have seen Arsenio Hall so many times in the last week that it took me until the second half to realize I was not watching the 1993 NBA Finals airing live after the documentary). Even NBA-TV is hit or miss at this point. August has made them so desperate that they have replaced call backs to Michael Jordan‘s six Finals series with 2005 Finals, a.k.a. the one that no one was watching (I caught a glimpse of Game 7 yesterday; neither team had cracked 40 a couple minutes into the third quarter).
It is the time of year that leaves basketball writers with very little to actually write about. The amount of Top 5 Reasons Team X Will Do Y articles have reached Bleacher Report levels amongst all NBA blog sites. About 200 articles too many have been written about Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady, and the Conference-not-Finals Trophy shaped blob of write-ups on their careers, their legacy, top highlights, lowest moments and whether they deserve to go to the Hall of Fame is getting scary (by the way the answer is yes, they both deserve a spot in Springfield; I’ll be explaining why in my NBA column this week and no, I’m not a hypocrite). Writers are also wasting large amounts of time writing about players who will have little impact on the upcoming season. So, I decided to write about Jimmer Fredette (OK, maybe I’m a hypocrite).
The Great Mormon Hope was the only personnel related blip on the Sacramento Kings’ radar this week. He was rumored to be the center of some trades Sacramento was working on and while Sacramento’s front office denied that Jimmer is being shopped, this seems like as good a time as any to take a look at Sacramento’s backcourt and how Fredette fits into it. Right now, Fredette is one of six guards Sacramento has on their roster. One would assume three of those guards will split the majority of the minutes and conceivably a fourth could get semi-consistent playing time. The question is whether Jimmer can grab one of those four spots.
Sacramento is returning their two primary guards from last season — Isaiah Thomas and Marcus Thornton — and is also throwing Greivis Vasquez into the mix. Vasquez is projected by most to grab the starting point guard spot upon arrival in Sacramento. Vasquez was one of the NBA’s best ball distributors last year — top five in assists and AST% — and his passing will provide something the Kings’ offense desperately needs. He was also decent scoring the ball on his own and his average ability to shoot it, slightly above average ability to score it around the rim and his elite passing skills should do nothing but improve on Sacramento’s already above average offense.
So, Jimmer most likely will not be stealing minutes away from Vasquez, but Vasquez’s presence on the roster may lead to more playing time for Jimmer. Vasquez is 6′ 6″ and 200 pounds and while he is not a great defender by any stretch, his size leaves him capable of sliding over to guard shooting guards for stretches of play. This can allow Sacramento to play undersized, score-first guards with Vasquez without totally compromising defensively. Two guards fit that mold on the Kings’ roster — Isaiah Thomas and Jimmer Fredette. You would figure, though, that coach Mike Malone will only be able to survive a handful of minutes with a Vasquez-Fredette or Vasquez-Thomas backcourt and that means only one of the two is probably seeing major playing time. Thomas has gotten the nod over Fredette the last two seasons. In that time, Thomas has shown he deserves the extra time also. Fredette only tops Thomas as a 3-point shooter and Isaiah Thomas was at least average from that range — warranting defenses to at least keep light tabs on him behind the arc. Thomas is also a superior scorer; he and Jimmer are around even from the mid-range, but Thomas is good around the rim for his size while Fredette is horrible at the basket. His overall scoring bump, his average abilities as a distributor and the fact he is a little less of a liability on defense should earn Isaiah those minutes alongside Vasquez.
But Fredette at least warrants a comparison to Marcus Thornton as well, to see if he could arguably take some minutes away from last year’s lead swingman. As scorers, Jimmer again grabs the edge at the 3-point line, though Thornton is around league averages from most 3-point spots and shot 37.2 percent overall from 3. Jimmer gets the nod from the mid-range as well, but at this point in their careers neither player should be taking many pull-up jumpers — though it should be mentioned that Thornton shot a knock down 62.54 percent from the top of the key area. At the rim Thornton is even better than Isaiah and actually marks well above the league average at the basket. And as mentioned previously, Fredette is down right deplorable in the paint. However, some may bring up Thornton’s aversion to drawing fouls as a drawback in Thornton’s offensive game, while pointing to Fredette being better in that regard. Both claims are true, but the bump Jimmer brings at the foul line is marginal at best. Jimmer made 1.1 more free throws than Thornton per 100 possessions last season and still sat behind Thornton in scoring by 1.2 points per 100 possessions. Still that difference in scoring is minimal and you could make a real argument Fredette would be just as effective a scorer as Thornton is with Thornton’s minutes. Thornton would serve as better rebounder — something Sacramento will need considering their forwards projected to play alongside cousins are decent at best — but Jimmer would be a better assist man (but a higher turnover player, as well). On paper it is statistically a toss up, but Thornton’s size advantage and previous role as the minute getter will probably edge him out over Fredette. Also, while Jimmer’s production projects out to the same as Thornton’s, those numbers tend to drop when a player sees more playing time and more touches.
All that being said Jimmer may still be able to steal some minutes as the fourth guard in the rotation — finding a little time playing next Vasquez and potentially running point alongside Thornton. However, for Fredette to grab those minutes he will have earn that fourth spot over rookies Ray McCallum and Ben McLemore. And to be honest, the player who earns those minutes will be the player who has the most talent, but also the player who Sacramento believes has the most upside. So, the questions becomes whether Jimmer — a 10th overall pick only two seasons ago — still has enough potential to root out top pick McLemore and second rounder McCallum. Despite the caution I have shown about McLemore’s perimeter shooting carrying over to the NBA, it is still obvious that he has the highest upside of this group of three players. If he is able to correct the shooting problems displayed in Las Vegas he has the potential to be a dangerous 3D wing in the same vein of Klay Thompson and Danny Green. For that to happen he will have to turn his size and athleticism into top-level defense, but under the tutelage of Mike Malone that is very possible. Fredette has already proven he can shoot it, but his size and lack of athleticism will stop him from ever being the type of player McLemore has the potential to be.
Fredette compares more favorably to McCallum, though. McCallum could be a decent scorer in the NBA, but his inability to hit the 3 ball will hold him from being a truly effective guard at the top level. Of course, this is where Jimmer shines and that, along with McCallum’s college career happening with Detroit against sub-par talent, gives Jimmer the edge over McCallum for now. But at this point it is hard to imagine either player seeing much playing time in Sacramento. McCallum did look great at for stretches in the Las Vegas Summer League, though, and it would not be totally surprising to see him make a big splash for the Kings. For Jimmer Fredette, however, the future with Sacramento looks pretty bleak.
[slider_pro id=”26″]