Jimmer Fredette is a sensation again. He hadn’t expected this to happen, certainly not in Shanghai, where he signed to play for one of the Chinese Basketball Association’s worst teams. But then came the 40-point nights, Shanghai’s unexpected rise from the bottom to the top and another group of fans halfway around the world was chanting his name.

“Jimo. Jimo. Jimo.”

There is no Chinese way to say “Jimmer,” his translator told him. They are using the word that sounds closest.

It means “lonely,” the translator added.

At first, Fredette was disappointed.

“I thought, ‘Lonely? That’s kind of depressing,’ ” he told The Vertical.

But the translator went on to explain that the conversion from Mandarin to English is not perfect, that the fans were not chanting “lonely” but rather something like “loneliness master” or “loneliness god.” They were saying he stood at such a high level, alone at the top, that he had no enemies. He was, in a sense, the very best.

Fredette’s Shanghai teammates later confirmed this to him, as did aides from his agent’s office. Suddenly Jimo didn’t sound depressing at all.

“Obviously, it’s a huge honor that I can hold on to,” Fredette said. “Now I love it.”

It shouldn’t be a shock that he has become a sensation in Shanghai, averaging a league-leading 37 points per game. His story in America was always larger-than-life. Why wouldn’t it be the same in China? While he is hardly the first NBA player to go there and score lots of points, he is one of the few who has made a difference in his city. He has done more than make baskets. He has helped turn one of the CBA’s worst teams into the best. And many must have wondered if that were possible.

The Shanghai Sharks have not been good for a long time, making the playoffs just three times since winning the league in 2002. Last season, they finished in a three-way tie for 10th in a 20-team league. Financial problems almost drove them out of business in 2009, surviving only when Yao Ming stepped in to run the franchise. That the Sharks are now 25-6 and tied for first with only a handful of games left in the regular season is something of a miracle. A big reason for that turnaround is Fredette.

He didn’t know much about Shanghai’s history when he signed with the team in early August. He had never been to China. At the time he was less than a month removed from a week in the NBA’s Summer League in which he didn’t shoot well. Though an NBA team was interested in bringing him to camp with a legitimate shot of making its roster, league sources said, Fredette took the guaranteed money in a league where the best players can make up to $3 million a year. All he understood about the Shanghai Sharks was that Yao ran the team and that Yao had a reputation for being honest and treating his players well.

Fredette averages 37 points per game for the Shanghai Sharks. (AP) More

When Fredette arrived in the fall, Yao asked him if he could be a leader for a mostly young team he had assembled. “Show them how to be professional,” Fredette remembers Yao saying. The coach, Yuenan Ma, put him at point guard and designed an offense that would allow him to score. And if there were one thing Fredette could always do, it was score.

“I think it’s just being able to go out and play and obviously having the green light to go out there and score the basketball and just do what you do on the court,” Fredette told The Vertical when asked how he has been able to adapt to the Chinese game so quickly. “I know if I have that confidence to be able to go out and shoot – and I’ve always been like that since growing up – I know I will have an opportunity to play and I have an opportunity to shoot the basketball.”

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