Julian Champagnie can smile and even laugh about it now.
A year ago, fresh off the disappointment of going undrafted, he struggled mightily in his first taste of the NBA Summer League, playing for the 76ers.
“You see my last year?” he asked with a smirk. “OK, then.”
Much has changed for the former St. John’s star in a calendar year.
He signed a two-way deal with Philadelphia, but was cut on Valentine’s Day, an experience he described as “horrible, feeling was terrible. I was a wreck.”
He found his way to the Spurs, thrived late in the season, became a restricted free agent, and then signed a four-year, $12 million deal to stay in San Antonio.
Now, he looks like a different player than the one in Las Vegas last July.
During this Summer League, he thrived for the Spurs in the same arena in which he had seemed out of place just 12 months ago.
“I found my comfort zone. Coaching staff likes me, my teammates like me. I love everything about this place,” the 6-foot-9 Brooklyn native told The Post. “It was good I was able to find a home and kind of show what I got. [Hopefully] I’ll be able to stick around for a while.”
Champagnie, 22, is part of the Spurs’ young core, a group headlined by No. 1 overall draft pick Victor Wembanyama, a generational 7-foot-3 prospect experts believe is destined for stardom.
On the first night of summer league, Wembanyama drew a sold-out crowd to the Thomas & Mack Center, only the second sellout crowd in advance of a game day in summer league history.
The game also featured Hornets wing Brandon Miller, the No. 2 overall pick in this year’s draft.
But the best player on this night was Champagnie.
He poured in 20 points, to go along with eight rebounds, six assists and an eye-popping dunk over Hornets rookie James Nnaji that instantly went viral on social media.
“That’s what I expect out of myself, just to play hard and play well, make shots,” Champagnie said. “That’s how I feel like I should play when the lights are on.”
This wasn’t an anomaly.
Champagnie has been a star for the Spurs this summer, averaging 20 points, seven rebounds and 3.4 assists in five games (two in Sacremento and three in Las Vegas before Friday) and shooting 37.2 percent from 3-point range.
It certainly seems as if he landed in the right spot with the rebuilding Spurs and five-time NBA championship coach Gregg Popovich.
The first stop in Champagnie’s pro career didn’t go nearly as smoothly.
He produced just 4.3 points in four games while shooting just 21.4 percent from distance last summer for Philadelphia’s summer league team.
He appeared in only two games with the 76ers last year, before he was waived on Feb. 14.
It was his welcome-to-the-NBA moment, a reminder of how harsh being a professional can be.
“Getting cut, that’s not what you want coming into the league. On a two-way, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Money’s not going to be guaranteed. It was definitely rough.”
He still celebrated Valentine’s Day with his longtime girlfriend, Cassidy Velez. But, Champagnie recalled, the food wasn’t very good that night.
The company was better.
“We had some good laughs,” he recalled. “She definitely lifted my day. It would’ve been horrible if I didn’t have her with me.”
Two days later, the Spurs signed him to a two-way contract.
With San Antonio, he got a chance to prove himself.
In 15 games late in the year, Champagnie shined.
He averaged 11 points, four rebounds and shot 40.7 percent from 3-point range.
He scored at least 24 points in three of his last five games.
Most importantly, he answered questions about his defense at the NBA level, in terms of his ability to stay in front of opposing wings and not get overpowered.
Once he joined the Spurs, Popovich helped build up Champagnie’s confidence.
One day before a game against the Kings, the legendary coach told him, “I think you have a career in the NBA, you just have to go get it. I don’t want you to wait around.”
Champagnie added: “He expects the most out of you, and he’s not sugar-coating it. He’s telling you, ‘This is what I expect out of you. Do it.’ ”
He didn’t have to wait too long after the Spurs extended a qualifying offer following last season, making Champagnie a restricted free agent.
His agent, Nick Blatchford of UNLTD Sports Group, called him shortly after the start of free agency, informing him San Antonio wanted to keep him.
Then came the even better news.
They wanted to pay him $3 million a season. Champagnie was stunned initially.
“To a 22-year-old kid, to make $3 million a year, it’s a good feeling,” he recalled. “It’s what I was looking forward to coming out of the draft. I didn’t get a chance to do it. People may think I made the wrong decision [by leaving school early], but I think I made the right decision.”
Champagnie insisted he hasn’t purchased anything extravagant yet with the money from his new contract.
He sees this as a start.
The Spurs believe in him and he has to show them they were right.
Just as his life changed for the better almost instantly, it can go the other way just as easily.
Still, for a player who went undrafted and was waived once, this was the best possible scenario.
“It’s a pretty big win, it’s a pretty big success story for him,” Blatchford said. “It’s a story of self-belief and perseverance so far. It was tough getting that call before the All-Star break. Ultimately, he ended up in the right place. He got his opportunity and he took advantage of it in a big way.”
