Re-Grading Pelicans' Dejounte Murray Trade 18 Months Later

How does the New Orleans Pelicans' trade for Dejounte Murray look like in hindsight?

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In the summer of 2024, the New Orleans Pelicans followed up the 49-win season and a playoff appearance with a trade for Dejounte Murray. The All-Star combo guard was supposed to be a seamless fit next to Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram to take the Pelicans to another level. The Williamson-Ingram-Murray trio, surrounded by CJ McCollum, Herb Jones, and Trey Murphy, was supposed to be a perennial playoff team that could make deep postseason runs in the Western Conference.

Fast forward 18 months, and the Pelicans have been nowhere near that level. In fact, they have gone 29-92 since that trade, raising questions about the future of this franchise. The general manager and head coaching change highlight how poorly things have gone in New Orleans since the 2024 offseason.

Even though the trade obviously didn't work, was it a worthy gamble for the Pelicans? Let's go back in time and take a look.

The Pelicans gave up Dyson Daniels, EJ Lidell, Larry Nance Jr., Cody Zeller, and two first-round picks for Murray. The three most significant assets in the deal were Daniels and the two picks.

The 2025 first-round pick ended up being the 22nd-overall pick, which the Hawks used to trade for Kristaps Porzingis. The Nets ended up with the pick and selected Drake Powell. Where the 2027 first-round pick will fall in the draft remains to be seen, but it is a top-four protected pick and is the least favorable one between the Pelicans and the Bucks. There is a good chance it will be a lottery pick.

Daniels, on the other hand, has blossomed into a true defensive difference-maker. In his first season in Atlanta, he won the Most Improved Player award and came in second in the Defensive Player of the Year voting by averaging a whopping three steals per game. He earned himself a four-year, $100 million deal in the 2025 offseason.

In exchange, the Pelicans got 31 games of Dejounte Murray before he suffered an unfortunate Achilles rupture in January. He has been out since, and whether he will return in the 2025-26 season remains a question.

The injuries have obviously played a large part in the Pelicans' struggles over the last year and a half. At the same time, the Murray addition was a failure even before he suffered the devastating injury.

Murray was in the midst of one of the worst seasons of his career in New Orleans. Despite having a 27.3% usage rate, he had a 49.4% True Shooting, making him a damaging offensive player. He was also averaging 3.4 turnovers per game, and his defense was nowhere near the level it was at when he was with the San Antonio Spurs.

When Murray was on the court last season, the Pelicans had a -10.1 net rating and were 9-22 in the games he suited up for. While Pelicans fans couldn't see him in action with Ingram and Williamson both healthy, the fit was never right from the start. This led to New Orleans trading Ingram to Toronto at the deadline, essentially ending the Murray-Zion-Ingram experiment.

Ingram, Murray, and Williamson are all players who need the ball in their hands. None of them are high-level three-point shooters. Murray and Ingram like to operate in the mid-range, while Zion likes to attack the basket. This trio requires significant shooting around them, which the Pelicans lacked outside of Trey Murphy and McCollum. Considering that the Pelicans needed a center around this group, this created further spacing issues, limiting New Orleans' offensive ceiling.

When the Pelicans already had two mid-range masters in Ingram and McCollum, adding another ball-dominant guard who doesn't thrive as an off-ball player was clearly a mistake.

At the same time, if the price was not too high, one could easily talk themselves into the talent upgrade. Yet, the last year and a half proved how high the price the Pelicans paid was. Daniels emerged as a starting-caliber two-way guard who was already more valuable than pre-injury Murray.

Yes, the developments since the trade make the deal look even worse than it was at the time, but Murray's fit never made sense, and giving up two first-round picks for a player who didn't fill the Pelicans' needs was a clear mistake. The only reason this grade is not an F is that we didn't see the team healthy together.

Grade: D-