Generosity comes naturally to Las Vegan Watson

If someone is said to be "generous to a fault" it's a good thing. It means he or she is generous to an excessive degree. That is how I would describe C.J. Watson, the former Bishop Gorman star who recently signed a one-year deal with the Brooklyn Nets, with an option for a second season.

Ninety-nine percent of the time, being generous to a fault is a wonderful thing. Such as the past week, when Watson and his parents, Charles and Cathy - and myriad other generous-to-a-fault volunteers - administered another free basketball and life skills clinic for inner-city kids at Doolittle Community Center. This was a wonderful thing, indeed, the 10th such clinic held under the banner of the Quiet Storm Foundation, named for unassuming C.J.

Fans of the Chicago Bulls might fall in with the other one percent.

The Bulls were the top seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs, but that was before Derrick Rose blew out his knee in Game 1 of the first round, and Watson was called upon to fill his size 13 adiZeros.

Watson didn't shoot the ball well against Philadelphia, but he passed it well. His 33 assists were high for the series. And with 12.2 seconds left in Game 6, Chicago led 78-77, though Joakim Noah was out, too.

The Bulls had the ball. They could send the series back to Chicago.

The Sixers tried to foul; one wasn't called. The play probably should have been for Watson to keep the ball, to wait for that foul. But when 20,362 people from Philadelphia are screaming and time is running out and you are steaming up court and are generous to a fault, it can be difficult to sort it all out.

The Bulls didn't have a timeout, but they had numbers.

And so with seven seconds to play, Watson threw the ball to Omer Asik.

Asik stands 7 feet tall and weighs 255 pounds and was born in Turkey, though I'm not sure being from Turkey had any impact on what would happen next. But being 7-0, 255 did have an impact on what had happened the last time down the floor.

When Watson passed the ball to Asik on a beautiful pick-and-roll with 25.8 seconds left, Asik dunked with two hands. This time, before Asik could dunk with either hand, Spencer Hawes grabbed him around the neck.

C.J. Watson is an 80 percent free-throw shooter. Omer Asik is a 46 percent free-throw shooter.

Watson would have been better off dishing to fellow Las Vegan Molly Sullivan, who was doing courtside interviews that night.

So after Asik lobbed two Turkey legs against the rim and Asik fouled Andre Iguodala with 2.2 seconds left - and Iguodala made his free throws - it was all over for the decimated Bulls. The Chicago media, which can be as truculent as 20,362 Philadelphia basketball fans, mostly blamed it on the quiet kid from Bishop Gorman.

"Watson had classic brain freeze," wrote Sam Smith, the Chicago basketball writer, and the Bulls were eliminated by "just a horrid 76ers team."

One man's brain freeze is another man's instinct.

"Two on one. Going to the basket. Getting Spencer Hawes to commit and dump it off to O." That was what Watson said afterward. Pulling up? No, he never thought about it.

Pass first, shoot second. Generous to a fault.

"I still think I made the right play," Watson said Saturday in a hallway at the Doolittle Center that was as quiet as he is. Inside the gym, 200 fourth- through eighth-graders were eagerly awaiting his arrival.

"They had tried to foul me a couple of times, but the refs didn't call it. So I tried to go get the bucket. It just didn't go our way."

And so next season Watson will back up Deron Williams in Brooklyn instead of Derrick Rose in Chicago.

These things happen. I don't think Watson, 28, is going to lose sleep over it.

This is a guy who wasn't drafted out of Tennessee, who played with Bipop Carire Reggio Emilia in Italy and then in the D-League before earning a 10-day contract with Golden State, and then earning another 10-day contract with the Warriors. And then he signed on for the rest of the year, after scoring 40 points against Sacramento.

You might lose sleep worrying about your basketball future during the ninth day of a 10-day contract, or when you're being generous to a fault in Serie A.   

But on Saturday, those 200 kids didn't ask or care about him throwing the ball to the big guy from Turkey.

C.J. Watson was their hero. And when one of the other volunteers coaxed him into exposing his washboard abs, the kids hooped and hollered.

It was the day's biggest cheer, until C.J.'s mom told the 200 kids with the same big dreams her son once had that there was Raising Cane's chicken and Texas toast in meeting room C, and it was free, too.          

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.