The Atlanta Hawks are trading All-Star guard Dejounte Murray to the New Orleans Pelicans, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
In return, the Pelicans are supposedly sending back first-round picks in 2025 and 2027, center Larry Nance Jr. and guard Dyson Daniels to Atlanta. The 2025 pick is the Los Angeles Lakers’ unprotected pick acquired through the Anthony Davis trade, while the 2027 pick will be the least favorable of the Pelicans and Milwaukee Bucks selections.
Murray is entering the first season of a four-year, $120 million contract he signed with the Hawks last offseason.
The trade is another big move in the NBA offseason, as the Pelicans look to upgrade a core already led by Brandon Ingram, Zion Williamson and CJ McCollum. As for the Hawks, they are missing out on a player who was supposed to help them take the next step.
Can Dejounte Murray help the Pelicans?
Since the Davis trade, the Pelicans have slowly transformed themselves into a playoff team. That effort led to a 49-33 record last season, but still left them needing the play-in tournament to make the playoffs.
The Pelicans’ season ended with a first-round sweep at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and it was difficult to watch their performance and think that additional experience was all they needed to make a name for themselves in the West.
With Murray, the Pelicans are getting a player who should slide reasonably well alongside McCollum in the backcourt while also adding to the team’s defensive identity. With the strong defensive principles of Herb Jones and coach Willie Green, the team ranked sixth in the NBA in defensive rating last year at 111.9.
Murray and McCollum are good ball handlers who continue to be threats on the perimeter, and this serves to form the foundation of the Pelicans’ new offense with Trey Murphy while Williamson attacks the paint. It’s Ingram’s role that could be changing with the addition of Murray, as he will be a free agent next offseason.
The Pelicans still have some things to work out this offseason, as standout center Jonas Valančiūnas is an unrestricted free agent. With Nance gone as well, there is a significant hole in the paint for New Orleans, which partially solved the problem by selecting Baylor big man Yves Missi with the 21st overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.
The Dejounte Murray trade was a long time coming for the Hawks
The Pelicans are taking a big gamble by trading for Murray, which didn’t exactly work out for the last team to do so.
The Hawks acquired Murray from the San Antonio Spurs in the summer of 2022, parting with a bigger package than the Pelicans gave up (three first-round picks, a pick swap and Danilo Galinari). At the time, it was expected that Murray could be an ideal complement to Trae Young, a player with major defensive deficiencies who needs the ball in his hands to be useful.
It’s hard to argue that Murray didn’t do his best, but the overall result was frustrating at best. The Hawks went 41-41 in his first season with Murray and 36-46 in his second. The team’s defense was a mess, and a full season of head coach Quin Snyder didn’t help.
So Atlanta is hitting the reset button, partially. Unless the Hawks want to destroy the team, Young probably isn’t going anywhere. He, De’Andre Hunter and Bogdan Bogdanovic are all under contract for at least two more seasons and parting ways with Murray could be a way for the team to recalibrate a formula that has so far failed to work.
Still, it’s hard not to see this trade as an admission that paying for Murray was a mistake in the first place.
