Champagnie must prove himself again
Ex-Pitt star upset after draft slight
Fewer than eight hours after he received a life-changing phone call, Justin Champagnie was back to work.
The morning after the former Pitt star accepted a twoway contract with the Toronto Raptors, he made the trek from his family’s home in Brooklyn to Coney Island Beach, where he arrived at 8 a.m. and began anintensive workout.
He had reached a point he had dreamt of since he was a small child. As he saw it, though, he hadn’t really arrived, at least not yet. There’s still too much left to do — and too many people left to prove wrong.
“[The Raptors are] known for taking guys who go undrafted, late second round and turn them into superstars.” — Justin Champagnie
Champagnie is in the NBA, armed with a contract that will allow him to move between the Raptors and their G League affiliate, Raptors 905. After going undrafted, he’s driven by the same hunger and scorn that helped get him here in the first place.
“Whenever I got that phone call from the Raptors, I was just blessed to have that,” Champagnie told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “They gave me a chance to come out here and show what I can do. Now, I’m just going to make everybody pay for it.”
The annual summer league in Las Vegas offered a first glimpse at Champagnie as a professional player. Competing against players that, like him, are overwhelmingly young and working to find a place in the league, Champagnie played in all five of the Raptors’ games. In those contests, in which Toronto went 4-1, Champagnie averaged 6.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.6 steals in 17.2 minutes per game while shooting 39.4% from the field and 23.1% from 3-point range. In an 86-72 victory against the Brooklyn Nets, he wrapped up his summer league experience with 11 points and 11 rebounds in 23 minutes.
It was a look at the player he’ll have to work to become if he is to have a sustained NBA career. At 6 feet 6 and 206 pounds, Champagnie projects more as a perimeter option than the low-post player he often was in college. With that comes a different set of skills he’ll have to refine.
“I wouldn’t say it’s different,” he said. “I’m a natural 3. But in college, I would work in the post and down low. Nobody could really guard me down there. But in the league now, everybody’s way stronger than you think.”
His evolution as a player at a new, more challenging level of the sport will come with something comfortingly familiar — motivation.
The belief he was overlooked and discounted has fueled Champagnie throughout his career. He was cut from his sixth-grade team in Brooklyn. Even as a high school star in New York, he received little attention from major-conference schools and said others expressed doubts about whether he could be an ACC player after he committed to Pitt. Once he arrived in Oakland, he did so as the lowestrated freshman in the Panthers’ 2019 class.
Those same forces helped shape him into a first-team allACC selection in 2021. In the NBA, they’ll take on a new form. Going undrafted surprised and hurt Champagnie, who previously said he had been assured by one unidentified team that they would take him if he were available. Now, he’ll look to do something productive with those feelings.
“I was upset. I wanted to get drafted. I felt like I put the work in to get drafted. But my whole life I’ve been doubted and counted out. This is really nothing new to me,” he said.
But getting passed over in the draft’s 60 picks didn’t make him regret his decision to leave Pitt after his sophomore season, forgoing as many as three years of remaining eligibility. He had turned 20 in June, making him young for his grade, and was coming off a season that will be hard to top from a production standpoint. The timing was right in a league that values youth.
“I took my chance when I had my chance,” he said. “I feel like I made the right decision at this time, whether I was drafted or not.”
Though not drafted, Champagnie ended up in what he feels is an ideal spot.
Though they, too, passed on him despite having two picks in the back half of the draft’s second round, the Raptors were one of the franchises with whom he was in constant communication throughout the process. Champagnie spoke with Pascal Siakam, the Raptors’ leading scorer and rebounder last season, in the leadup to the draft (the two share the same agent, Todd Ramasar). In Toronto, he saw a city that reminded him of New York, only smaller, cleaner and, admittedly, “with nicer people.”
Most important, though, the Raptors have a track record of turning the dreams of players in Champagnie’s position into reality. Fred VanVleet, Toronto’s secondleading scorer last season, was undrafted in 2016 before signing with the Raptors after a summer-league stint (this was one year before two-way contracts were instituted). Last November, he signed a four-year, $85 million deal. Before being traded to the Portland Trail Blazers in March, Norman Powell was third on the team in scoring after being a second-round pick in 2015 who spent time early in his career with Raptors 905. It’s a place where a player didn’t need to be a lottery pick or a high-priced free agent signing to become a difference-maker.
“They’re known for taking guys who go undrafted, late second round and turn them into superstars,” Champagnie said. “I trust them. They believe in me. I’m ready to work.”
At a certain point, the difference between being drafted and signed by the Raptors is largely immaterial. Guard David Johnson, whom the Raptors drafted at No. 47 overall, also signed a two-way contract with the franchise, and unlike Champagnie, he didn’t get to pick his team. Last season, such two-way deals paid players about $450,000.
They provide a player with a chance to refine their skills at a lower level while also getting to showcase themselves to the parent club on a much larger, morecompetitive stage.
“I get the opportunity to show I don’t belong in the G League,” Champagnie said.
More than anything else, Champagnie is thankful for where he is. By leaving Pitt when he did, he was looking for an opportunity. Now, he has one.
“I got my foot in the door. That’s all I needed,” he said. “Once I get my chance, I’m going to make it happen.”