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Jimmer Fredette’s draft stock is somewhere between five and five million, or maybe it just seems that way. Teams such as the Knicks have been rumored to be trading up for the sharpshooter’s services, even while he’s been working to change opinions about his defense and playmaking ability. The smattering of seemingly contradictory information has left Fredette as ignorant as the rest of us when it comes to his draft stock, but that doesn’t mean he’s having a bad time.

“It’s really tough to say with all the trade rumors and everything else that’s going on right now,” Fredette said at the Westin in Times Square on Wednesday. “Literally I couldn’t tell you. I hope I’m picked to the right situation, you know, as high as I could go. It doesn’t really matter to me as long as it fits my style of play and the coaching staff is all on board and they like me as a basketball player. Then I’ll be excited to go wherever. Honestly I have no idea at this point. I’m all over the draft board.”

Fredette’s absolute basement is probably the No. 15 selection, which is owned by the Pacers. He refers to his trip to Indiana as his “most-positive” workout and went on to say that Indiana’s front office seemed “really impressed” with how he played against Duke’s Nolan Smith. Of course Fredette is also coveted by teams who pick after the Pacers, which is why the Knicks have been rumored to be interested in trading ahead in the draft.

“That’s great,” Fredette said. “If they want me that badly and they’re able to try and make moves—we’ll see what happens, you never know until it’s a done deal. You never know. Mike D’Antoni is a great coach and that would be a fun team to play for, but we’ll see.”

New York is always discussed as a major factor, be it positive or negative, on professional athletes; but Fredette, who hails from upstate, has grown accustomed to lots of attention after leading the nation in scoring as a senior.

“I’m getting a little more used to it,” Fredette said. “It’s something that came on during the season this year. It’s different for me being from a smaller school, small town that wasn’t used to this much media attention, but it’s been great. I’ve had fun with it.

“This is what comes with the territory if you’re going to be an NBA basketball player,” he continued. “If you have a big name out there, this is what comes with it and so, like I said, it’s a part of the job and I’m excited everyone’s here and everyone wants to know what’s going on.”

But there’s a great chance Fredette remains in a small market, like, say, Sacramento. The Kings own the seventh overall pick and may represent his best overall fit because of the presence of Tyreke Evans.

The 6-6 combo guard is built like a 2 but plays like a 1, which would give Fredette the chance to shoot more on offense—something he obviously isn’t afraid to do—while defending the point on defense.

“Obviously a great player, a rookie of the year, a guy that’s going to be a rising star in this league and he’s a bigger guy that can slash to the basket and create for himself and others,” Fredette said of Evans. “That would be good for me as well, to have two guys out there that can create for themselves but also for others.

“I think I fit in well [in Sacramento],” Fredette continued. “Ball-screen system, they need a guy that can stretch the floor and shoot the ball well, but also create for others and that’s what I do best.”

One market that is already pulling for Fredette is Salt Lake City, but he doesn’t expect Jazz general manager Kevin O’Connor to do anything just to appease local fans. On the other hand, the Jazz have the 12th overall pick, and Fredette’s shooting ability might mesh well with Gordon Hayward’s point-forward skills.

“I think they’re fine,” Fredette said of the Jazz. “Kevin O’Connor has been doing this for a long time and he’s experienced. He knows what he’s doing. I don’t think he worries too much about what the fans are thinking. He worries about his team. He knows that winning translates to happy fans. So whoever he thinks is going to be the best fit for his team, that’s who he’s going to pick.”

Admittedly, there has been some doubt about whether or not Fredette can play the point in the NBA, or, if at 6-2, he’s better of being a small shooting guard. But Fredette knows that being an undersized off guard means limiting his options professionally. There is simply more work for a point guard who can shoot the lights out as opposed to a shooting guard who isn’t tall enough to defend other shooting guards.

So when he’s asked about where he sees himself or what players he models his game after, Fredette always directs the conversation to a specific point.

“I think mostly a 1,” Fredette said when asked where NBA teams have been working him. “Every once in awhile maybe play off ball. Most of the teams in the workouts see me as a point guard and that’s what I see myself as. I played point guard all growing up. All the way up through college I always played point guard. So that’s my position and that’s what I want to play.

“[I have] similar attributes [to] Deron Williams, how he’s about my size, uses his crossover really well,” Fredette continued. “Crossover, step back, I watched him a lot being in Utah, watched him a lot in the NBA. So I tried to emulate his game. Obviously he’s a very good point guard. And somewhat Steve Nash—how he can get his shot off quickly and especially in the lane. He can get off those different types of shots.

“I’m not at their level yet, but some of their stuff is in my game.”

One thing teams can’t criticize Fredette for is his professionalism. He’s been getting good advice throughout this process and he’s also shown an understanding for the nuances at the next level. Fredette doesn’t expect to come in and score 28 PPG as a rookie.

Instead, he’s trying to do simple things. For instance, there’s been questions about his ability to guard the pick and roll, and since Fredette watches enough pro ball to see the play’s current popularity, he spent a great deal of time during his five workouts proving himself as a pick-and-roll defender.

“I just did whatever they wanted me to do,” he said. “Sometimes they wanted you to go over [the screen]. Sometimes they wanted you to go under [the screen]. Sometimes they want you to force it away from the screen. There’s different ways to guard it and I did well in the workouts, so I did a pretty good job of that. Obviously I have to continue to work on the ball-screen stuff both offensively and defensively because that’s what this league is. It’s a ball-screen league. You just got to get as good as you can at it.

“There’s always question marks going into the NBA,” he continued. “You never know how a player is going to fair, how things are going to play out for him. My job [was] to go out there and play has hard as I possibly [could]. And whatever team I get picked for, I’ll be really excited and I know that I’ll be able to come in and make a positive impact right away and be able to be a guy that they can count on night in and night out.”

Unfortunately for Fredette, he can’t count on anything quite yet. In the next 24 hours he’s going to go from midtown Manhattan to Newark’s Prudential Center. By Friday he’ll probably be landing in his new home to address a new batch of beat writers and nobody knows what future has in store for him beyond that.

{AUTHOR_BOX}Walker vs. Fredette

Connecticut’s Kemba Walker and BYU’s Jimmer Fredette played against each other only once, and it was at the Jazz practice facility in Utah earlier this month. A lot of people had anticipated a matchup between two of the most-popular college basketball players in the country, but Walker said he didn’t get caught up in the commotion.

“It was good,” Walker said in Manhattan on Wednesday. “I really didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but it was a great workout. Me and Jimmer really competed against each other, and it was fun.”

The national title belongs to Walker while the scoring title is all Fredette’s, but it’s anyone’s guess who actually came out on top behind closed doors.

“They said I did well and that was really it,” Walker concluded.

Kanter’s Year Off

Enes Kanter left Turkey’s Fenerbahçe after the 2008-2009 season, came to America, attended a handful of high schools and ultimately agreed to go to the University of Kentucky after reneging on his initial commitment to Washington. As most know by now, the NCAA ruled Kanter ineligible, but he did spend the season practicing against an elite Wildcats team.

The question is, was it enough to prepare him for the NBA?

“It was really tough because you are not playing in a game,” Kanter said at the Draft’s media day. “You’re not playing in a game. You’re just practicing. Every practice was my game… I just tried to give 100 percent in practice because I couldn’t play in a game. So practice, like coach [John] Calipari told me, ‘Every practice is your game. So just go as hard as you can.’”

Kanter, who later admitted he thinks he’s the third best player in this draft, could have stayed in Istanbul to play for Fenerbahçe, but he says his father pushed him to get an American education. Those plans obviously conflicted with Fenerbahçe’s.

“First of all, they wanted me to sign [a] six-year contract,” he said of Fenerbahçe. And [that offer] was really long because my dream was always NBA [sic]… They didn’t want me to play in NCAA because they wanted me to stay and sign contract.

“My dad said, ‘I want you to be a good student before [a] good player,] so that’s why I came here.”

But Kanter’s road to the NBA isn’t totally clear. There is the very-good chance that the league will have a lockout before next season so Kanter could return to Turkey to prepare with the national team.

“If there’s a lockout, probably I will go to Turkey and play for national team because, when I go to the national team, I will play against Dirk [Nowitzki], [Pau] Gasol,  [Ronny] Turiaf, everybody.”

Thompson’s Workout With Detroit Was… Eh.

Texas’ Tristan Thompson is rumored to be going to the Pistons, who own the eighth overall pick, but he seemed surprised to hear that in Manhattan on Wednesday. As he sees it, Thompson’s workout with Detroit wasn’t anything but spectatcular.

“The workout in Detroit, it went okay,” He said. “It was good competition. Markieff [Morris], Bismack Biyombo, so it was good. I think everybody did pretty well in the workout, so, to be honest, I don’t know what they’re looking at because we all played on an even playing field.”

Even if he didn’t wow everyone at that workout, the Pistons still seem poised to take him with the eighth overall pick.

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