Former Tennessee point guard C.J. had a strong showing last week at the Rocky Mountain Revue, an NBA summer league in Salt Lake City, Utah. Playing in all six games for the San Antonio Spurs, Watson ranked second in the six-team league with 3.8 assists while adding 6.0 points and 1.3 steals per game. An 87.8 percent free throw shooter as a senior at Tennessee in 2006, Watson led all players at the RMR with a 91.7 free throw percentage.
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It’s really nice to see C.J. doing well in summer league play. I know that Coach Pearl and many Tennessee fans had hoped Watson would get drafted by an NBA team. However, is he even in the position that he is now if not for Bruce Pearl? Without Pearl, this Tennessee team is lucky to make the NIT, let alone win the SEC East and earn a number two seed in the NCAA tournament. That exposure has to have helped Watson tremendously.
Pearl’s system and his philosophy also helped Watson. Pearl plays an up tempo style and believes in getting his players some rest. Getting that rest for C.J. this past season meant getting an inexperienced Jordan Howell more playing time. The results were that his minutes were down but he improved in field goal percentage, three point field goal percentage, free throw percentage, turnovers and scoring average. I think it’s fair to say that he improved in almost every offensive category while playing fewer minutes.
Pearl also promoted C.J. every chance he got last season. He mentioned him frequently in interviews citing that C.J. was going to make a nice player for someone in the NBA. According to one of his interviews, Pearl told about how he had called his old friend Ernie Grunfeld (GM of the Washington Wizards) and told him that Watson was going to make a great backup point guard for someone.
Good luck C.J.