Dejounte Murray. NBA All Star. 2nd All Defensive team Selection. A player who just this past season dropped an average of 21.1 points, 8.3 rebounds and 9.2 assists. All at the ripe old age of 25. The San Antonio Spurs best guard since the days of Manu and Parker…
He could very well be on the market to be traded. Why would the Spurs do such a thing? Well, it might be more complicated than you think. It feels like the Spurs have been teetering between competing and a rebuild for some time. While they haven’t made the post season since 2019, they haven’t tanked for a top 5 pick either. They’ve consistently been around the play in range.
Dejounte Murray has two years remaining on his contract. He’s a unrestricted free agent, fully free to sign with whoever he wants in the 2024 offseason. We have also heard from Murray that his only goal is to win. That may prove hard to accomplish with the Spurs (as of today) who’s team roster has the average age of 23. They plan to sign three first round picks who are between 19-20 years of age. They are expected to pursue players like Lavine and Ayton in the upcoming Free Agency but could very well strike out.
If they can get Murray adequate help to compete in a healthy and deep western conference, what will the plan be? Will Murray (a Klutch client) be okay with missing the postseason once more and potentially being a 10 seed or worse for the 5th straight year? Will the Spurs risk Murray being disgruntled and either leaving for free or wait until his trade value dwindles?
Enter trade rumors with the Atlanta Hawks. Reported initially by Jake Ficher, the reports came flooding in that San Antonio is pursuing a “Jrue Holiday like package” for the young All Star. This report was echoed by a few Atlanta Hawks beat writers and even got the attention of Marc Stein. The rumored package involves the known disgruntled John Collins and 2-3 draft picks. The rumors got extra attention when Murray took notice and tweeted out the classic eye emojis with popcorn. Then Trae and DJ started liking each other tweets while suddenly following the other respective accounts. A sign or troll job, that’s for you to decide.
To get such a package would help the Spurs jumpstart a debatably long over due rebuild phase. IF that's something they are interested in. They already have a young core with wings and guards aplenty. Keldon, Vassell, Primo, Sochan, Wesley and Malachi to be specific. At this rate you can’t keep all of them much less play them with all that overlap. This isn’t even considering players like Murray himself or Josh Richardson. All similarly sized.
The Spurs are at an important crossroad and here are their options. Either trade/sign competing players to give Dejounte Murray a chance at competing, option A. Trade him and jumpstart this rebuild in earnest, option B. Option C is risking either getting him for pennie’s for the dollar when he’s expiring or watching him walk for nothing. An argument could be made the Spurs already experienced this with Kawhi Leonard, Demar Derozan and Lamarcus Aldridge. Fairly or unfairly, these players were either traded for lesser value or bought out. Murray could be their one shot of getting fair value.
All in all, the Spurs have some interesting choices to make. Someone could argue it’s their biggest offseason since before Tim Duncan. I suspect over the next few days, we’ll have our sense of direction with this Texas team.