Julian Champagnie kept firing, and on Saturday evening the San Antonio Spurs finally got the payoff. He went 6-of-9 from beyond the arc, then finished the night with 192 3-pointers made for the season, breaking Danny Green’s franchise record even as the Spurs fell 136-134 to the Denver Nuggets in overtime.
That record had stood since Green made 191 threes in the 2014-15 season. Champagnie, who joined San Antonio at the tail end of the 2022-23 season, has spent much of this year living through the kind of swings that test a shooter’s nerve: he has missed as many as nine 3-pointers in a game twice this season, and has also come up empty on six attempts several times, including in games without a make. “I just keep shooting,” he said after those rough nights, a mindset that became the story as much as the streak itself.
He has not done it alone. Victor Wembanyama summed up the season-long rise by saying Champagnie is “a guy who’s taken every opportunity to get better,” a nod to the work that has shown up since his arrival. Playing free initially intrigued him, and his work ethic stood out right away. San Antonio had under 20 wins when he joined, then barely matched that total during Wembanyama’s rookie season, which made every small sign of progress feel earned.
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The tension in Champagnie’s season is that the breakout came in defeat. He celebrated the record with teammates after the final buzzer, saying, “I give all the credit to my teammates” and that “it was good to celebrate it with them.” That is the part that fits the night best: a personal milestone built in public, then capped by a loss that left the Spurs still searching for a result to match the shooting.
