{"id":67057,"date":"2018-02-17T00:02:11","date_gmt":"2018-02-17T06:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=67057"},"modified":"2018-02-17T18:54:31","modified_gmt":"2018-02-18T00:54:31","slug":"filayyyy-hits-l-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/filayyyy-hits-l-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Filayyyy hits L.A."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Nathan Smith<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Medill Reports<\/em><\/p>\n<p>LOS ANGELES \u2013\u00a0Jesse Jones is almost too famous to be here.<\/p>\n<p>A dozen men took turns shooting threes and executing exotic dunks in an empty Staples Center on Wednesday, all part of the dress rehearsal for the NBA All-Star Weekend\u2019s competitions. Some, like Jones, played college basketball. But only Jones can boast Kyrie Irving, Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James as fans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m trying to play overseas,\u201d Jones says, \u201cbut now I have a big brand, I don\u2019t know if you heard of it, it\u2019s called Filayyyy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Jones was a lightly-recruited, undersized shooting guard out of Passaic County Community College. He transferred to Division II Bridgeport University, where he was a reliable scorer off the bench. In between his junior and senior seasons in 2015, he posted a video on Instagram, a highlight of then-Kentucky commit Isaiah Briscoe. The video debuted a style, and a catchphrase, that would change Jones\u2019 life.<\/p>\n<p>Jones provided Briscoe with singing commentary, narrating the guard\u2019s crossover and fadeaway shot with staccato soul, before belting the crescendo \u201cooh, filayyyy!\u201d The video received 4,200 likes. His next videos included highlights from Irving and Stephen Curry. Popular websites like Bleacher Report and House of Highlights began sharing Jones\u2019 videos, leading @filayyyy to attract over 600,000 followers.<\/p>\n<p>Despite his notoriety, Jones continues to work out furiously to keep in basketball shape, he says. He\u2019s looking for any team, in any country, who will pay him to create highlight reels rather than narrate them. He says it has been difficult for him to find interest,\u00a0 which he believes can largely be attributed to playing in obscurity at Bridgeport.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI played Division II, so it\u2019s a little tough to be seen,\u201d Jones says. \u201cYou\u2019re not really showcased on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones came to Los Angeles for the first time to participate in this dress rehearsal. His face lights up when asked if he thinks his performance could help him attract foreign interest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou never know,\u201d he says with a shrug. \u201cSomebody may see something from this and be like, \u2018Hey, come over here,\u2019 you know?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones stood in for Klay Thompson in the three-point contest and hit 18-of-30 attempts. He assisted the stand-in for Victor Oladipo by throwing alley-oops. When the stand-in slammed the ball through the basket, the p.a. announcer began to sing \u201cFilayyyy,\u201d before going off key and trailing off.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s someone to play Thompson. There&#8217;s someone to play Oladipo. Now, there&#8217;s someone to play Jesse Jones.<\/p>\n<div class=\"featurecaption\">Jesse Jones dunks at the rehearsal for the Slam Dunk Contest (Athena Liu\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Nathan Smith Medill Reports LOS ANGELES \u2013\u00a0Jesse Jones is almost too famous to be here. A dozen men took turns shooting threes and executing exotic dunks in an empty Staples Center on Wednesday, all part of the dress rehearsal for the NBA All-Star Weekend\u2019s competitions. Some, like Jones, played college basketball. But only Jones [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":467,"featured_media":67059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4047,31,3987],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nbaallstar2018","category-sports","category-winter-2018"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Filayyyy hits L.A. - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/filayyyy-hits-l-a\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Filayyyy hits L.A. - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Nathan Smith Medill Reports LOS ANGELES \u2013\u00a0Jesse Jones is almost too famous to be here. A dozen men took turns shooting threes and executing exotic dunks in an empty Staples Center on Wednesday, all part of the dress rehearsal for the NBA All-Star Weekend\u2019s competitions. Some, like Jones, played college basketball. But only Jones [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/filayyyy-hits-l-a\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-17T06:02:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-18T00:54:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/medill.wordpress.offload\/WP%20Media%20Folder%20-%20medill-reports-chicago\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/02\/Jesse-Jones-1-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1100\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"598\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nathansmith2018\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"nathansmith2018\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/filayyyy-hits-l-a\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/filayyyy-hits-l-a\/\",\"name\":\"Filayyyy hits L.A. - 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