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James Augustine

James Augustine profile
Drafted #41 in the 2006 NBA Draft by the Magic
RCSI: 79 (2002)
Height: 6'10" (208 cm)
Weight: 227 lbs (103 kg)
Position: PF
High School: Lincoln-Way Central High School (Illinois)
Hometown: Mokena, IL
College: Illinois
Current Team: Unicaja Malaga
Win - Loss: 1 - 1

Articles

Orlando Pre-Draft Camp: Day 3 (Last Update: 10:46 AM)

Jonathan Givony
Jonathan Givony
Mike Schmidt
Mike Schmidt
Joseph Treutlein
Joseph Treutlein
Jonathan Watters
Jonathan Watters
Eric Weiss
Eric Weiss
Jun 08, 2006, 11:52 am
Augustine had a very quiet game, being invisible for most of the time and not really asserting himself to make the impact he is capable of in this game. He had a spin move down low for a jam, made an open jam created for him by a teammate, and hit one long range shot. Aside from that, he didn’t do much of anything, often standing around and watching while people battled for rebounds or cutters came near him on defense. This was certainly not a good showing for someone who has long been pegged as a first-round pick.

James Augustine NBA Draft Scouting Report

Apr 13, 2006, 01:53 pm
Strengths
In terms of physical attributes, Augustine has an ideal package of what scouts usually look for in an NBA power forward. He is a lefty with good size at 6-10, an excellent frame, a nice wingspan, and more than enough athleticism to get the job done. Augustine is extremely agile, running the floor well--especially in transition--having good quickness and footspeed and being able to get off the floor swiftly to rebound, block shots and especially dunk.

Offensively, he has a few decent moves he can go to in the paint, but gets most of his baskets simply by being in the right place at the right time, often in transition. Moving off the ball is where Augustine truly excels, and it would not be a surprise at all to see him end up becoming an excellent player to run the pick and roll with. He’s a fairly intelligent player with good hands and quick feet, so once he sets the (very solid) pick and rolls to the basket he will usually finish emphatically around the hoop if he’s not being too fiercely contested.

Augustine’s go-to move is the left-handed jump-hook. It’s a move he’s practiced to the point of perfection, spinning quickly to his right shoulder, elevating slightly off the floor and releasing it fluidly with a nice touch. Augustine doesn’t take too many shots, but the ones he takes he converts at a very high rate, 62.4% on the season and 61.7% in his career, which puts him in 1st place on the all-time list at Illinois.

A place where he shows plenty of potential is in his face-up game. The same nice touch he shows inside the paint extends to a certain extent outside the paint as well. Augustine was never a prolific mid-range shooter in college, but he did show sparks of potential here to knock down open shots with range out to about 18 feet when given the chance, particularly in the last few months of his career at Illinois. He also has an excellent 1st step for a big man with flashes of some ball-handling skills. It’s not out of the question that he could mold all these skills into a legit high post game, which would make him, along with his raw post moves, versatile enough offensively to see legit playing time in the NBA. The fact that he is a decent passer only adds to this initial impression.

Augustine finished his career as the best rebounder in Illinois history, pulling down over a thousand in his career. He relies mostly on his wingspan, hands, quickness and leaping ability in this area, not being incredibly prolific but definitely getting the job done effectively.

Augustine is also the winningest player in Illinois history (tied with Dee Brown), which should tell you something about the experience he brings to the table and how intriguing it is that he still has legit upside to continue to improve. He’s been to the NCAA tournament multiple times, and helped his team reach the National Championship game with a very solid showing in the 2005 NCAA tournament up until that game.

In terms of intangibles, Augustine’s appear to be fairly strong. He has a cool and calm demeanor on the floor, and has a similar reputation off the court as well, never being one to cause problems for his coaches or teammates. He was named to the Big 10 all-academic team his sophomore year.


Weaknesses
Most of Augustine’s weaknesses revolve around the mental side of the game, not his talent or physical attributes.

The most frustrating thing Illinois fans will tell you about Augustine is the fact that he just doesn’t seem to want the ball in the post that much, as he appears completely content being a role player. When he does get the ball in the post in position to score, it’s not rare to see him pass up a clear opportunity to take his smaller or less talented matchup one on one and score on him. At times he can be very hesitant and tentative with the moves he makes when he does try to do something positive, not taking the ball strong enough at his opponent at the rim. The question of whether he is soft, either mentally or physically, is something that will be brought up in NBA war-rooms on draft night, and this is something that Augustine will have to prove people wrong about in individual workouts.

Besides his somewhat passive nature, Augustine could anyway still stand to add some more moves to work with in the post. His length, quick feet and soft touch aren’t utilized often enough since he seems to lack fundamental footwork beyond his go-to jump-hook shot. Being able to create offense for himself rather than having everything created for him is a sure-fire way to earn more fans as his NBA career progresses. His potential is the type that will probably only be extracted by a good, patient coach, as Bruce Weber managed to accomplish up to a certain extent at Illinois.

In terms of his face-up game, Augustine shows nice sparks, but nothing consistent enough to get all that excited about right now. Continuing to improve his ball-handling skills and getting his 18 foot jump-shot down pat could go a long way in determining how long he sticks in the NBA for. After shooting just under 75% from the free throw line as a junior, his numbers for some reason fell to 65% as a senior.

Defensively, there is still a lot Augustine can improve on in this area, although he can be quite solid here as he’s shown when he puts his mind to it. He seems to have all the tools to be a very nice defender, but is probably lacking some of the proper fundamentals and necessary aggressiveness to really take advantage of them. You would think that a player with his size, length and athleticism would be able to block more than 0.7 shots in his senior year, although this has just as much to do with Bruce Weber’s defensive game-plan as it does with Augustine. Bigger and stronger players don’t have too much of a problem backing him down in the post, so Augustine will have to continue to fill out his nice, but underdeveloped frame to help him with that in the NBA. Just being tougher and more active would help him out immensely. This comes out in his rebounding as well, where he tends to rely too much on his natural physical attributes to get the job done rather than being fundamental in boxing out.

Competition
Augustine was not considered a top 50 recruit coming out of high school, but still had a pretty long list of team’s that were recruiting him in the Mid-West. He started getting playing time right off the bat under Coach Bill Self, starting in 29 of 32 games his freshman season and playing 22 minutes per game. With Self leaving for Kansas and Bruce Weber being hired from Southern Illinois, Augustine started every game for Illinois from that point on in his career. He took a bit of a backseat at times over his sophomore and junior seasons to the fantastic 3-guard combo of Dee Brown, Luther Head and Deron Williams, but still played an important role in his team’s success. His performance in the National Championship game, being completely outplayed by Sean May and fouling out in 9 minutes without a point to his name is clearly a game he would like to forget. Up until that point he was actually have a nice tournament by his standards, with the highlight being a 23 point, 10 rebound outing against Nick Fazekas in the 2nd round.

With Deron Williams leaving early for the NBA (#3 overall pick) and Luther Head graduating into being a first round pick himself, Augustine’s role expanded his senior year and he responded by putting up 13.6 points and 9.1 rebounds a game, good for 1st team All-Big 10 honors. Illinois made it to the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament, matching up with Washington, and Augustine looked like he was on his way to the best game of his career on this huge stage (see links: spotlight article). He scored 19 points in the first 15 minutes of the contest on 7-9 shooting from the field, but never got another field goal attempt for the next 25 minutes and ended up seeing his team lose.


Outlook
Augustine’s draft stock heavily depends on whose being asked. No other draft outlet even considers him a prospect as late as mid-April. Augustine obviously has the size and tools the NBA looks for in a PF, and a solid showing in the NBA pre-draft camp in Orlando could solidify his place in the first round. Otherwise he would be an excellent pick anywhere in the 2nd round.



Facts
Coaches First Team All-Big 10 in his senior year. Third Team All-Big 10 as a junior.

NCAA Tournament: Stock Watch (round of 32, Saturday games)-- Stock UP

Rodger Bohn
Rodger Bohn
Jonathan Givony
Jonathan Givony
Jonathan Watters
Jonathan Watters
Mar 19, 2006, 03:35 am
For the first 25 minutes of the Illinois-Washington matchup it looked like James Augustine might be making a case for being a lottery pick this June.

He showed off his outstanding agility time after time, putting the ball on the floor and taking it emphatically all the way to the hoop for a two handed slam., setting terrific screens and getting himself open right at the rim, doing an excellent job on the glass as well as moving off the ball and getting to the free throw line repeatedly. There was nothing soft or passive about the way Augustine was playing in this game, two things that have consistently been the biggest knocks against him in his four year career. At one point he grabbed a defensive rebound and pretended he was going to swing his elbows right in the face of Washington point guard Justin Dentmon if he didn’t get out of the way, a move we’d usually never dream of seeing from the usually meek and mild-tempered senior.

It was in fact Augustine that got Illinois back in the game when they started off the first half 4-25 from the field and down 28-14 with 5 minutes left to go in the half. His athleticism was just too much for the Huskies to handle, to the point that Lorenzo Romar was forced to put his best and most athletic defender in 6-7 Bobby Jones on him.

With 15 minutes to go in the first half that all came to an end for some strange reason that even Bruce Weber couldn’t explain. Augustine, 7-9 from the field at that point, didn’t get another field goal attempt the entire game. A small part of that had to do with Augustine losing a bit of his fire and not moving off the ball quite as well as he had previously, but you could count the number of actual touches he got in those fifteen minutes on one hand. His body language looked a bit timid down the stretch, but his teammates should have done a much better job of getting him involved in the game considering how hot he was earlier.

So where does that leave Augustine as far as the NBA draft goes? He clearly helped his cause in this game, as well as down the stretch during the regular season. 6-10 athletic big men with long arms and a decent frame don’t grow on trees, especially when they have a nice touch both around the basket and from mid-range. From what we’ve been told he’s accepted his invite to Portsmouth in a few weeks and now that his season is over should have no reason not to attend If he comes out with some fire and a chip on his shoulder he could very easily work himself into being a solid first round pick, despite the fact that he’s not even projected as a draft pick anywhere else besides DraftExpress.

NCAA Tournament: Washington Bracket NBA Draft Prospects

Jonathan Givony
Jonathan Givony
Landry Fields
Landry Fields
Mar 12, 2006, 10:51 pm
A player whose exit from last year's tournament likely left a very sour taste in his mouth considering the manner in which it happened, Augustine will be looking to capitalize on a solid, but unspectacular senior year that saw him raise his draft stock to the point that he appears to be knocking on the door of the 1st round.

Showing good size, a nice frame and very solid athleticism, intriguing the scouts was never going to be a difficult task for the 4 year senior and all-time leading rebounder in Illinois history.

Being assertive asking for the ball on the offensive end, using his skills to score with his excellent left-handed jump-hook, continuing to rebound and pass the ball steadily and being the anchor of Illinois' outstanding defense are the tasks that Augustine has at hand in this tournament. Helping his team to a deep tournament run will help make scouts forget about last year's 5 foul, 9 minute debacle against Sean May in the tournament, as well as give him some great momentum to kick off the NBA draft process.

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