With Dejounte Murray‘s season debut imminent, Mirin Fader of The Athletic and Rod Walker of NOLA.com both look at what has been a long road back for the Pelicans guard, whose Achilles tear in January 2025 represented the worst of his professional setbacks following a series of personal tragedies.
During the months leading up to his Achilles tear, Murray’s mother sustained a stroke, his cousin was killed, and his uncle suffered an overdose, Fader writes. Given all he was dealing with off the court, the 29-year-old was able to put the challenge of making it back from an Achilles tear into perspective, according to Walker.
“I’ve been through so much,” he said. “This is part of the journey. Injuries are a part of sports. It’s not how you fall. It’s how you get back up. For me, it was attacking the process day-by-day and staying level-headed and trying to find some positive and fun out of it.”
At 16-42, the Pelicans are well out of the postseason picture, but they also don’t control their 2026 first-round pick, so they have no incentive to lose down the stretch of the 2025/26 season. With that in mind, head coach James Borrego is looking forward to welcoming Murray back to the rotation and seeing what kind of impact the former All-Star guard will have on his teammates and the club as a whole.
“Dejounte will raise our level,” Borrego said, per Walker. “… He’s worked his tail off, so there’s probably a little bit of relief of ‘I’m finally back.’ But more than anything, I just want him to go out there and compete and embrace the moment and be there with his teammates.”
We have more from around the Southwest:
- The new three-year contract signed by Pelicans wing Bryce McGowens is fully guaranteed through the 2026/27 season, tweets Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, with a team option for ’27/28. New Orleans used $724,598 of its mid-level exception to promote McGowens from his two-way deal and to lock him up for two more seasons beyond this one.
- Former No. 2 overall pick Jabari Smith Jr., whose new five-year, $122MM rookie scale extension will go into effect this July, has been showing in recent weeks why the Rockets signed him to that deal, as Matt Young of The Houston Chronicle writes (subscription required). Smith’s 31-point outing vs. Utah on Monday increased his scoring average over the past 10 games to 18.6 PPG on .550/.483/.833 shooting. “The last month or so, I think Jabari has been catching his rhythm, understanding more his role,” teammate Kevin Durant said. “I know guys have been here for a while but it’s still a different team from last year, so guys got to understand their roles a little bit more and I think ‘Bari has just stepped into his position and been great for us the last month.”
- Mavericks swingman Max Christie spoke to Mark Medina of EssentiallySports about a variety of topics, including not being included in the three-point contest, why he thinks Cooper Flagg should be Rookie of the Year, and the impact Kyrie Irving has had on the team despite not playing this season. Christie also told Mike Curtis of The Dallas Morning News (subscription required) that he wants to put an exclamation point on what has already been a career year. “I just want to play better for the last 26 games than I did for the first 51,” said Christie, who has averaged a career-high 13.3 points per game on .469/.427/.871 shooting. “If you look at it from a statistical standpoint, if I could bump those (per-game) averages up a little bit, that would be successful for me. … I’ve been shooting it well from the two and the three, but I think if I’m willing to sacrifice a little bit of percentage for volume, I think that can be a good building block for me. Obviously, not going crazy but just looking to try and improve.”