Champagnie’s NBA trek starts in Toronto
Throughout the 2020-21 season, as he put up dizzying numbers that helped him become Pitt’s first all-American in a decade, Justin Champagnie spoke often about hoping his on-court accolades could one day help others, namely his family and those closest to him.
As Thursday bled into Friday, he took an enormous step toward doing that.
After a decorated two-year run at Pitt, Champagnie signed early Friday with the Toronto Raptors after being bypassed in Thursday’s NBA draft at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., Champagnie’s hometown.
With his deal, Champagnie becomes the first Pitt player who ended his career with the Panthers to sign a contract with an NBA team following the draft since Jamel Artis and Michael
Young did so in 2017, signing with the New York Knicks and Washington Wizards, respectively.
Under a two-way contract like the one Champagnie signed, a player is able to shuffle between an NBA team and its G League affiliate over the course of the season. Teams are able to have two players under such a contract in a season, with them not counting against the 15-player limit. During the 2020-21 season, a two-way contract was worth about $450,000.
“I might shed a tear because I put in a lot of hard work to get here,” Champagnie said in a video teleconference with reporters on July 15. “Nobody really knows how much I’ve been through besides me and my family. I’m excited to see how I react. I’ll definitely be smiling.”
Two years removed from winning an NBA title, the Raptors finished 27-45 last season and missed
the playoffs for the first time since 2013. They selected three players Thursday: Florida State small forward Scottie Barnes (No. 4 overall), Nebraska point guard Dalano Banton (No. 46) and Louisville point guard David Johnson (No. 47).
Pitt hasn’t had a player that finished his career at the school drafted since Lamar Patterson in 2014. It’s the Panthers’ longest such drought since 1964-74.
As a sophomore last season, Champagnie was the lone major-conference player in Division I men’s basketball to average a double-double, scoring 18 points and pulling down 11.1 rebounds per game.
The 6-foot-6 forward finished tied for seventh nationally in rebounds per game and tied for eighth in double-doubles, with 18. In wins in December against Northwestern and GardnerWebb, Champagnie had consecutive games with at least 20 points and 20 rebounds, making him just one of three players in the past 25 years to accomplish the feat. (Oklahoma’s Blake Griffin and Purdue’s Caleb Swanigan are the others.)
That collection of accomplishments helped Champagnie become the first Pitt player to earn first-team allACC honors. He finished in a tie for second in ACC player of the year voting behind Georgia Tech’s Moses Wright.
In May, Champagnie signed with agent Todd Ramasar and officially entered the draft, forgoing as many as three years of eligibility remaining and becoming the Panthers’ first early entry since Steven Adams in 2013.
That decision kickstarted Champagnie’s pursuit of his lifelong dream of making it to the NBA, but it came with a level of uncertainty about what exactly his future at the next level would be.
While more of a traditional frontcourt player in college, Champagnie — measuring 6-foot-6, 206 pounds with a 6-foot-10 wingspan — is widely considered to be a wing at the professional level. He has earned widespread praise for his energy, effort, instinctiveness and rebounding, the latter of which is aided greatly by how quickly he gets off the floor and a preternatural ability to anticipate where the ball is going.
For the position he would likely have to play in the NBA, however, there are concerns about his outside shooting — he shot 31.1% from 3-point range last season and 28.8% for his college career — his ability to create offense off the dribble and his lack of lateral quickness, as well as previous struggles with off-ball defense.
Still, with his skill set, Champagnie said teams he visited during the predraft process drew favorable comparisons between him and current NBA players Jae Crowder of the Phoenix Suns and Bruce Brown of the Brooklyn Nets.
In the leadup to the draft, Champagnie met with the Nets, Knicks, Boston Celtics, Atlanta Hawks, New Orleans Pelicans, Oklahoma City Thunder, Toronto Raptors, Utah Jazz, Houston Rockets, Minnesota Timberwolves and the recently crowned NBA champion Milwaukee Bucks.
“Everybody always says you have to go into workouts and show this and show that, but I believe in being me,” Champagnie said this month. “I go in there and do what I do best and show them I have the potential to be even better.”
Projections on Champagnie’s draft position varied. After being tabbed as a first-round pick by several outlets in the middle of the 2020-21 season, his stock dwindled in the season’s final few weeks, particularly after Au’Diese Toney and Xavier Johnson, Pitt’s No. 2 and 3 scorers, transferred in late February and prompted opposing teams to key in on Champagnie more.
He was rated as the No. 47 draft prospect by The Athletic — the draft has 60 total picks — while Sports Illustrated had him at No. 52, CBS Sports at No. 62 and ESPN at No. 69. Of those outlets, only one of them had Champagnie included in its mock draft. The Athletic projected him to go to the Charlotte Hornets with the No. 56 pick.
Murky as that outlook was, Champagnie said he had received an assurance from an unnamed team that it would select him if he were available later in the draft.
“I’m pretty confident,” Champagnie said this month. “I’m confident in myself. I’m confident in my chances.”