St. John's Professional Athletes

Julian Champagnie isn't just passing through San Antonio — he's planting roots, deep ones.

The St. John's product had what may have been the busiest week of any NBA player this side of training camp. Champagnie signed a $45 million deal with the San Antonio Spurs, purchased a $2.34 million home in The Dominion — one of the city's most exclusive gated communities — and landed a featured modeling role in Nike's newly unveiled NBA Standard Issue Collection for the 2026-27 season. That's a contract, a house, and a national brand campaign in the span of days. Not bad for a kid who came up through Queens.

Setting Up Shop in The Dominion

The new Champagnie residence checks in at 5,068 square feet, tucked inside a community that counts plenty of San Antonio's elite among its residents. The purchase signals that Champagnie, now locked in with the Spurs long-term, is treating this as home — not a layover. Players who buy in cities tend to perform in cities, and the Spurs have every reason to hope that logic holds for the Red Storm alum.

The Nike Moment

Champagnie was tapped by Nike to model the Spurs' look in its new Standard Issue Collection rollout, a lifestyle-adjacent line released for all 30 teams ahead of training camp. Being chosen as the face of a franchise's feature in a league-wide Nike campaign isn't random — it's a signal of where a player sits in an organization's marketing hierarchy. For a former second-round pick still carving out his place in the league, it's a meaningful distinction.

The St. John's Connection

Champagnie isn't the only Red Storm alum currently on a Spurs roster — David Jones, the 6-foot-8 power forward, is also on San Antonio's books, giving St. John's an unusual two-man footprint on the same NBA team. Neither Champagnie nor Jones played together at St. John's, but the pipeline from Queens to the Alamo City is hard to ignore at this point.

Elsewhere in the league, Daniss Jenkins remains with the Pistons, RJ Luis Jr. is suiting up for the Celtics, and Kadary Richmond holds a roster spot with the Wizards — keeping St. John's represented across four different franchises heading into the new season.

But this week belonged to Champagnie. The $45 million deal was already the headline; the house and the Nike campaign turned it into a full-blown arrival story. The 2026-27 season will determine whether the investment — on both sides — pays off.

The NBA-to-college pipeline is rare. The NBA-to-college pipeline running through the courtroom is rarer still. Former St. John's standout R.J. Luis Jr. is now officially part of that short list.

A judge cleared Luis Jr. on Monday to begin practicing with LSU and potentially suit up for the Tigers this season — capping a whirlwind journey that took the former Red Storm wing through two NBA organizations. Luis Jr. spent time with both the Boston Celtics and the Utah Jazz before signing with LSU, making his return to college basketball one of the more unusual eligibility stories in recent memory.

The legal hurdle cleared, Luis Jr. can now focus on what happens on the court. For LSU, landing a player with legitimate NBA experience — however brief — is a meaningful addition. For Luis Jr., it's a second act that few players ever get to write.

The St. John's connection runs deep here. Luis Jr. was one of the program's more celebrated recent talents before testing the professional waters, and his willingness to return to the college game rather than chase a marginal NBA roster spot signals a player with a clear-eyed sense of where he can compete at his highest level.

The Rest of the Red Storm's NBA Footprint

Luis Jr. isn't the only St. John's alum with an NBA address this week. Julian Champagnie and David Jones are both on the San Antonio Spurs roster, giving the Red Storm a two-man presence in South Texas. Champagnie, a shooting guard, and Jones, a power forward, represent the program's most sustained current NBA presence.

In the backcourt, Daniss Jenkins is with the Detroit Pistons, while Kadary Richmond holds a roster spot with the Washington Wizards. Four active NBA players — plus one making the unprecedented jump back to college — is a strong snapshot for a program that has worked hard to re-establish itself as a pipeline school.

The Luis Jr. story, though, is the one that transcends the weekly roster check. Court clearance for college eligibility after NBA employment isn't a precedent that gets set often, and the combination of legal drama, program loyalty, and a player betting on himself in an unconventional direction makes it the kind of storyline that will follow the 2025–26 college basketball season well into March.