Snapshot
- Team / role: New Orleans Pelicans projected starting lead guard and primary organizer; 28–31-minute camp target.
- 2025-26 baseline: 14 games, 27.8 MPG, 16.7 PTS, 5.4 REB, 6.4 AST, 1.6 STL, 0.2 BLK and 1.4 threes on .484 FG and .867 FT. NBA team statistics, accessed 2026-07-18
- Market anchor: an April community board placed him 48th, while current expert ranks spanned roughly 25–109—an unusually wide health-and-role range. Reddit, 2026-04-14 · FantasyPros, accessed 2026-07-18
2026-27 projection
| GP | MPG | FG% | FT% | 3PM | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 55 | 30 | .465 | .835 | 1.4 | 17.0 | 5.3 | 6.5 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 2.8 |
Correction 2026-07-18 3PM 1.5 to 1.4 only, applying the team-level Mosley three-point-attempt fade. Minutes and GP are unchanged; 64 games remains an availability estimate one year off an Achilles rupture. Source: Sports Illustrated on Mosley.
Correction 2026-07-18 Base GP lowered from 64 to 55, superseding the "unchanged" note above. The 64-game figure rested on the injury ledger's claim that Murray "played the remaining schedule" after his return, and that claim was false: he debuted February 25 against Golden State, appeared in 14 regular-season games, and missed New Orleans's final five with a bruised left hand. Removing the false premise removes the reason he carried no availability discount. 55 reflects a second season back from an Achilles rupture in which he has not yet demonstrated a sustained run of games. Source: Yahoo return report.
Fantasy translation
- Nine-category: 50-75; assists and steals justify a middle-round price, while turnovers and post-injury uncertainty cap aggression.
- Points: 55-80, with settings that reward double-doubles and steals pushing him upward.
- Dynasty: 65-95; a veteran hold whose value can recover with 65 healthy games but is unlikely to regain a youthful premium.
Role, floor and ceiling
Murray should start and handle the first unit, while Jeremiah Fears remains a shared-creation partner rather than a pure backup. Floor: 24–26 minutes with rest management, roughly 14/5/5 and fewer than 55 games. Ceiling: 32 minutes, 18/6/8 and 1.7 steals if the Achilles is fully normalized and Jordan Poole moves out of the rotation or off the roster.
Injury and transaction monitor
Murray debuted February 25 after 13 months rehabbing the right Achilles rupture suffered January 31, 2025. He played 14 games and then missed the Pelicans' final five with a bruised left hand. NBA/AP return feature, 2026-02-24 His rehabilitation-period mentorship of Fears and public description of the rookie as part of the franchise's future support a two-guard coexistence model.
Research shelf
Career record
Pre-NBA: Washington (one season, 2015-16). Started all 34 games at 33.5 MPG for 16.1 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 1.8 steals on .416 FG, .288 3PT and .663 FT; second-team All-Pac-12 and Pac-12 All-Freshman, and he led all conference freshmen in scoring, assists and steals while setting the Washington freshman assist record (151). Draft: 2016, first round, 29th overall, San Antonio. He was later traded to Atlanta in July 2022 and to New Orleans in July 2024.
| Season | Age | Team | GP | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PM | FG% | FT% | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | 20 | SAS | 38 | 8.5 | 3.4 | 1.1 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.2 | .431 | .700 | 1.0 |
| 2017-18 | 21 | SAS | 81 | 21.5 | 8.1 | 5.7 | 2.9 | 1.2 | 0.4 | 0.1 | .443 | .709 | 1.7 |
| 2018-19 | 22 | SAS | 0 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| 2019-20 | 23 | SAS | 66 | 25.6 | 10.9 | 5.8 | 4.1 | 1.7 | 0.3 | 0.6 | .462 | .798 | 1.9 |
| 2020-21 | 24 | SAS | 67 | 31.9 | 15.7 | 7.1 | 5.4 | 1.5 | 0.1 | 0.9 | .453 | .791 | 1.7 |
| 2021-22 | 25 | SAS | 68 | 34.8 | 21.1 | 8.3 | 9.2 | 2.0 | 0.3 | 1.4 | .462 | .794 | 2.6 |
| 2022-23 | 26 | ATL | 74 | 36.4 | 20.5 | 5.3 | 6.1 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 1.8 | .464 | .832 | 2.2 |
| 2023-24 | 27 | ATL | 78 | 35.7 | 22.5 | 5.3 | 6.4 | 1.4 | 0.3 | 2.6 | .459 | .794 | 2.6 |
| 2024-25 | 28 | NOP | 31 | 32.6 | 17.5 | 6.5 | 7.4 | 2.0 | 0.4 | 1.7 | .393 | .823 | 3.4 |
| 2025-26 | 29 | NOP | 14 | 27.8 | 16.7 | 5.4 | 6.4 | 1.6 | 0.2 | 1.4 | .484 | .867 | 3.4 |
| Career | 517 | 29.3 | 15.5 | 5.8 | 5.4 | 1.5 | 0.3 | 1.2 | .454 | .793 | 2.1 |
The 2018-19 row is zero games, not missing data: Murray tore his right ACL in an October 8, 2018 preseason game and sat the full season.
Fantasy history: the peak was 2021-22 through 2023-24. Publicly cited season-end 8-category per-game finishes place him 23rd in 2022-23 and 20th in 2023-24; his 9-category rank sits meaningfully lower in both years because 2.2 and 2.6 turnovers are a real drag at that price. The 2021-22 season was his best category profile — 9.2 assists and 2.0 steals led the league in steals — but a precise 9-cat rank for it is not verified here. The 2024-25 and 2025-26 seasons are unrankable in any meaningful sense at 31 and 14 games. Points leagues have consistently treated him better than category leagues: the assist and steal volume plus low-value turnovers make him a firmer top-40 points asset than a top-40 9-cat asset.
Durability: 38, 81, 0, 66, 67, 68, 74, 78, 31, 14. Two catastrophic lower-body injuries bracket the career — a torn right ACL on October 8, 2018 that erased 2018-19, and a ruptured right Achilles on January 31, 2025 against Boston (noncontact, first quarter) that ended 2024-25 and cost all but the final stretch of 2025-26. He returned February 24, 2026 after roughly thirteen months, played 14 games, then lost time to a hand/finger problem. The 2019-20 through 2023-24 stretch is the honest read on his availability when healthy: 66 to 78 games a year, five straight seasons, no soft-tissue pattern.
Trajectory: The arc is a steady, minutes-driven climb from 8.5 MPG to 36.4 MPG across six seasons, with the genuine leap in 2021-22 — assists jumped from 5.4 to 9.2 on a near-identical field goal percentage, which is a usage and role change (he became San Antonio's sole initiator), not a skill jump. Atlanta traded scoring for playmaking: 2023-24 was his highest-scoring season at 22.5 on 2.6 threes, but assists were flat and steals dipped, because he shared the ball with Trae Young. The 2024-25 New Orleans sample is the one warning sign that predates the Achilles — .393 from the field and 3.4 turnovers, both career worsts, in a season where the shot diet got harder. He is entering his age-30 season on a repaired Achilles, the single worst injury for a guard whose value has always rested on defensive activity and downhill pressure; the 14-game 2025-26 line shows the passing and steals returned intact and the efficiency actually spiked, but 14 games at 27.8 minutes is not evidence about a 70-game workload. Treat the 2019-20 to 2020-21 version — mid-teens scoring, six-ish assists, 1.5 steals, near-.460 shooting — as the realistic 2026-27 center of gravity rather than the Atlanta peak.
Career sources: ESPN career stats · Wikipedia — Dejounte Murray · ESPN, torn ACL, 2018-10-08 · NBA.com, Achilles rupture, 2025-02-01 · NBA.com, return feature, 2026-02-24 · StatMuse, season-by-season per game
Table re-verified cell-by-cell against ESPN and StatMuse on 2026-07-18; the two sources agree on every season row and on the career line.
Open questions
- Will Murray have a full-contact, unrestricted training camp?
- Is 30 MPG a floor, ceiling or maintenance target in October?
- How often do Murray and Fears share the floor, and who closes at point guard?