Chase Thomas podcast. The Chase Thomas podcast. My nephew needs me to record. See, I hate, I already hate it. I hate it.

All right. We're back here on the Chase Thomas podcast where I'm joined by a VFL early part of the 21st century, C.J. Watson, former Tennessee star and someone that had a backcourt mate in Chris Lofton who

kind of resembles a lot of what we're seeing with Tennessee basketball right now with

Sakai Ziegler and Chas Lanier this season.

But first, I got to say, CJ, this is my first guest who I played with an NBA 2K.

I think you are the first guy I played with an NBA 2K on this very program. How are you, sir? I'm doing good, man. You're making me feel old. 21st century, the first guy you played 2K with, but definitely ought to be on the show. I mean, do you, I mean, you're 40. Do you feel old? Like how, like, I'm, I'm turning 34 this year.

So I'm closing in.

I'm right there with you.

I'm getting up there. Um, do you feel 40 at all when you play it? I don't play anymore, but yeah, definitely, I just feel it when I wake up, but it's definitely a different feeling when you're 40 waking up, you know, little aches and pains here and there. you can tell when it's getting cold outside because your knee starts to hurt a little bit but you know all those

little things your parents told you about you're starting to come true so you don't hoop at all

anymore like you're not even for fun anything no I can't play for fun there's no I'm too

competitive to play for fun and I can't just go out there and play, you know, with just anybody.

So I just got to, I'm still, I think I just got to play against the best.

So if I can't play against the best, then I just got to just retire.

Do you still at least get shots up or are you like nothing?

What was left to me to go to jump shot?

I haven't touched basketball all years and it feels good. Wow. Yeah. That's interesting. Do you miss it? Do you miss it? Because it seems like a lot of players, they talk about like when their body gets to a certain point, they don't miss the grind, but they do miss the camaraderie and being in the locker room. Is that kind of how it was for you?

Yeah, I think when I first retired, I definitely thought I still had a little left in the tank and I still missed it and still thought I could, you know, or wanted to play. But now it's just like, you know, I still love the game. I'll watch it. I don't want to go out there and train, you know, five or six hours out of the day or go ahead in the weight room and lift and do footwork agility drills, stuff like that.

So I definitely love it, but I don't miss it at all.

Are you somebody, when you have friends over, family over, and basketball's on, are you a

awesome basketball hang where you're like, I can, I can just watch it for what it is? Or are you

looking, identifying stuff and look at it kind of as like a coach and a player? Can you look at it as a fan? Or is it just too hard where you're just diagnosing stuff? And it's just, I see the game differently and it's tough. Yeah, I mean, I can sit and watch other people, but sometimes people annoy me because they say things that just don't regulate with my basketball mind, I feel like. But I definitely dissect it and look at the game a different way than I think anyone else would, just a casual fan. But I can watch it with other people only for like a certain amount of time. If I watch it with you once and you annoy me, then if you asked me to come watch the game with you again, I'll probably just make up some excuse why I can't go.

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