By Neil K. Warner

He has a nickname given to him by a Hall-of-Famer.

He considers NBA commissioner David Stern a close friend and shares a bond with Walt Frazier.

He calls Frank Layden a mentor, grew up in southern Illinois near Jerry Sloan and became a symbol of stability with the Utah Jazz franchise as he served in nearly every capacity in his 28 seasons with the Jazz.

His name? Bumps Fredman. Or formally known as Dave, but most people simply call him Freddie.

It seemed as though Dave Fredman had done it all in more than 30 years in professional basketball, but at age 55, there was something the veteran basketball coach/scout had not done—worked in the D-League.

But given time, there isn’t anything basketball related that Fredman won’t do. He’s been called on to help shape the Utah Flash and for an expansion team, it fits right in with Fredman’s bio.

The year was 1974 and Fredman was a college student at Loyola University in New Orleans and the NBA had just awarded New Orleans an expansion team. For a kid who said he learned to read from the box scores in the sports page, he knew he had to get involved.

“I met Bill Bertka, who was the general manager at the time, and asked him for a job. He told me he liked my attitude and to come and see him sometime. The next morning I was there when the office opened,” Fredman said. “I think a lot of young people who want to get into sports don’t really understand. They say I have a degree, I deserve to be paid this much. Sometimes just getting your foot in the door and getting a chance to do something.

“The less glamorous jobs are season ticket sales and unloading boxes for promotions and all the things that you do. Some of the things I’m still doing now that I’m back in the minor leagues, trips to the airport and things like that. You need to have the attitude that no job is too small.”

Fredman did it all for New Orleans. For instance, when the public relations director left for another job, he was promoted and at age 23 found himself working with Hall-of-Famer Pete Maravich.

“I had a great relationship with Pete. We got a long very well. We became friends. I went to his funeral when he passed away in 1988,” Fredman said. “I always felt fortunate every time you watched him practice. I always said he’s a guy you would pay to watch practice. He was just that entertaining as a player. He was so far ahead of his time. He was fun to watch from a basketball standpoint.” When the Jazz moved to Utah, Fredman moved with the team. He helped the Jazz in the broadcasting department by providing color commentary on the Jazz television network broadcasts from 1980-83 and assembled a radio network.

But even though Fredman had a dream job, it wasn’t his dream job. Fredman wanted to get into the coaching side of the game and eventually Layden gave him the chance.

“When Bill Bertka hired me he knew that I wanted to get into coaching, but he said because I hadn’t coached or played, I’d have to come in through the front office. He said if I was patient, I’d get a chance,” Fredman said. “When Frank (Layden) was coaching he told me he needed another scout and a video guy.”

Fredman had to decide if he wanted to cross the line from broadcasting to coaching.

“Frank asked me if I was sure I wanted to give this all up to come into basketball to be a video guy and a scout, and I said ‘yes.’ It’s always been my dream. That’s how it started in the 1987 season. He promoted me a year later to assistant coach and then they added director of scouting to my title.”

Fredman was on the Jazz bench and in the locker room for Utah’s most successful seasons in franchise history, including Utah’s final runs against the Bulls. From 1987-99, Fredman was an assistant coach and scout for the Jazz, focusing on advance scouting and game preparation. During his tenure in Utah, the Jazz went to the playoffs 18-straight times and won six Midwest Division titles.

But in 2001, he faced one of the biggest decisions of his life—to leave the Jazz. The Denver Nuggets had hired Kiki Vandeweghe as the team’s general manager and Vandeweghe needed an assistant.

He wanted Bumps.

“It was a difficult decision and obviously in hindsight it probably wasn’t the greatest decision, but I’d never been recruited before and Kiki Vandeweghe recruited me,” Fredman said. “It was a situation where I felt like I probably had a job for life if I stayed (with the Jazz), but on the other hand I felt like I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity to move up and progress. I think it was the combination of that that made me take the job.”

In Denver, Fredman teamed up with Vandeweghe and together they were instrumental in helping the Nuggets go from forgettable to respectable. Denver was a struggling team with no salary cap flexibility, but quickly turned into one of the up-and-coming teams in the NBA. In 2003-04, the Nuggets posted the sixth-biggest turnaround in NBA history, improving their win total by 26 games and reaching the playoffs for the first time since 1995.

But Fredman found out the Nuggets didn’t run their franchise like the Jazz.

“I thought we were going to use the same standards and ideals we had with the Jazz and that didn’t work out,” Fredman said. “The inmates sort of ran the asylum in Denver.”

Despite helping turn the Nuggets around, ownership opted to make a change. Vandeweghe and Fredman were out.

“We turned things around in Denver. The most disappointing thing was when they made a management change and decided to go in a different direction after we had won a division championship,” Fredman said. “Usually you think you’re going to get fired for losing. We actually won and made the playoffs and did a lot of good things in Denver, but you have to get past that.”

Fredman was now a free agent. He talked to Commissioner Stern, who helped him get a scouting job with the NBA, a position he held when Flash owner Brandt Andersen began assembling his front office.

Fredman came highly recommended from the Jazz as witnessed by the number of Jazz brass at the press conference to introduce Fredman.

Jazz president Dennis Haslam, Layden, former coach and team president were on hand along with current V.P. of Basketball Operations Kevin O’Connor, and former Jazz player Thurl Bailey.

If the Flash wanted the Jazz to send their players to their affiliate, they had to be comfortable with the coach and GM.

Fredman was like comfort food.

“Dave’s been in the business along time. He was selling tickets with the Jazz when they were in New Orleans and he worked his way up to Director of Player personnel with the Jazz. He’s been on both ends, the business and the basketball side. Most people either do one or the other. He’s done both,” O’Connor said. “Since the Flash has started out from ground zero, he’s been able to do it all.”

Now Fredman spends much of his time working to improve the team’s roster and scouting for the future. He wants to follow the blueprint of success that was created by the Jazz.

“We’re working with the league in getting the rules where they make a little more common sense, that’s been the biggest surprise to me how different they are than NBA rules,” Fredman said. “As far as acquiring players, all players have to sign with the league. We really try to get local players here when we can. Not only for the fan appeal, but they also know a little bit about the Jazz and how we’re trying to do things.”

Fredman points to the acquisition of former University of Utah player Britton Johnsen, who he traded for, as evidence that the Flash would like to have a local presence.

“We took a chance on Britton Johnson, selfishly it didn’t work out as well for us (he left during the season to play in Turkey), but it worked out for him. I think that will pay dividends for our franchise later on where players know we care about the player and not winning and losing all the time,” Fredman said. “Players will know we care and that we will try to get them better as a player and get them better opportunities.”

Fredman has proven to fit in nicely. He’s helped construct an expansion team to a franchise that has generally been accepted as one of bright franchises of the D-League.

“We tried to hire someone who knows basketball and knows the (Utah) Jazz. Dave Fredman is someone who truly knows basketball. He’s someone who for over 20 years worked for the Utah Jazz,” said Flash owner Brandt Andersen. “He’s someone who Elgin Baylor gave a nickname to. They call him Bumps, Bumps Fredman. Anybody who gets their nickname from Elgin Baylor knows basketball.”

Of course, you can’t have a nickname like that and not explain the story behind it.

“Elgin Baylor was the coach of the (New Orleans) Jazz and then like it is now, I was always trying to fight what I now I call the middle-age spread, the battle of the bulge. My wife likes to call them love handles, he called them bumpers. We were always working out or on diets. He’d joke around and say, ‘bumpers, it looks like bumpers has been in the cookie jar.’”

How many guys can say they got their nickname from a Hall-of-Famer? How many guys have been involved in every aspect of a franchise and now are doing it all over again?

“We decided we could be on the cutting edge of how to run a D-league team and show other teams how they can work with their parent clubs and affiliations. Brandt bought into all of that. He deserves as much credit, because he’s been able to put his resources behind it,” Fredman said. “I think Brandt has learned a lot in this first year as we all have. It’s been a learning process for all of us, but I think we all like where we are.”