Education
University of Michigan.
University of Michigan.
He is most famous for his time spent on the famed University of Michigan Wolverines Fab Five along with Ray Jackson, Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, and Jalen Rose, who reached the 1992 and 1993 National Collegiate Athletic Association Men"s Division I Basketball Championship games as freshmen and sophomores. He played all four years at Michigan and averaged 15 points per game as a senior in 1995. He was part of the University of Michigan Wolverines Fab Five, along with Ray Jackson and future National Basketball Association players Juwan Howard, Chris Webber and Jalen Rose, that reached the 1992 and 1993 National Collegiate Athletic Association Men"s Division I Basketball Championship games as freshmen and sophomores.
He was a starter for teams that reached the tournament four times.
Before this, he was a high school All-American basketball player at Plano East Senior High School in Plano, a city north of Dallas, Texas. Although the Fab Five final four appearances have been forfeited, he was not among the players called before the grand jury (Robert Traylor, Webber, Rose, Maurice Taylor, and Louis Bullock) in the University of Michigan basketball scandal and was not found to have received large amounts of money.
King was selected by the Toronto Raptors in the second round (35th overall) of the 1995 National Basketball Association Draft and played 62 games for them during the 1995-1996 season, averaging 4.5 points, 1.8 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game. On July 24, 1996, before the start of the 1996-1997 season, he was traded to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for Ronald "Popeye" Jones, but King was eventually waived.
After playing most of the 1996-1997 season with the Quad City Thunder of the College of Business Administration, he signed with the Denver Nuggets on a 10-day contract, but participated in only two games for them, tallying six points, two rebounds, two assists and three steals.
King also played a few seasons in Europe and with the Continental Basketball Association (College of Business Administration) where he was the 1998 Most Valuable Player with the Quad City Thunder. He played for the United States national team in the 1998 International Basketball Federation World Championship, winning the bronze medal. He also played for the Asheville Altitude in the NBDL. In a phone interview on the Jim Rome Show on November 30, 2006, Jimmy stated he was working as a financial advisor for Merrill Lynch on Wall Street.
During the 2008-2009 Michigan Wolverines season King served as a radio color commentator.
Currently, King is the Program Director of H.Y.P.E. Athletics Community, a nonprofit organization which provides academic, athletic, and citizenship mentoring for youth in the Detroit area, and President of J King Solar Technologies. In August 2011, King was detained by police for failure to pay $17,000 in back child support for his 17-year-old son.
He was incarcerated at Michigan"s Oakland County Jail along with Jalen Rose, who was serving time for a Driving under the influence arrest. On January 27, 2012, the case against King was dismissed after he paid the $17,000 in full.
The March 13, 2011 airing of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network films 30 for 30 documentary The Fab Five sparked national outrage that led to a series of media exchanges between members of the press, Michigan Wolverines men"s basketball players, including King, and Duke Blue Devils men"s basketball players in forums such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.