Snapshot
- Team / role: New Orleans Pelicans starting wing and first-tier scoring option; 34-minute base case.
- 2025-26 baseline: 66 games, 35.5 MPG, 21.5 PTS, 5.7 REB, 3.8 AST, 1.5 STL, 0.4 BLK and 3.2 threes on .470 FG and .886 FT. NBA team statistics, accessed 2026-07-18
- Market anchor: FantasyPros' live dynasty board listed him 31st and Hashtag's crowd keeper board around 25th at the research cut. FantasyPros, accessed 2026-07-18 · Hashtag Basketball, accessed 2026-07-18
2026-27 projection
| GP | MPG | FG% | FT% | 3PM | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 62 | 33 | .470 | .885 | 2.9 | 20.3 | 5.4 | 3.5 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 1.7 |
Correction 2026-07-19 GP 68 to 62. The 68 exceeded his three-season base (57, 53, 66 — mean 58.7) by more than eight games with no stated reason, and the availability record argues against one: the surgically repaired right shoulder (torn labrum plus partial rotator cuff, March 2025) flared again in February 2026 within a year of the operation, and his last public 2025-26 status was out for the finale with a right-ankle sprain, with no later medical update located. A recurrent same-joint problem is the predictive kind; 62 sits between the recurrence-marred recent seasons and the 66 he just posted rather than assuming a career-adjacent high. Sources: ESPN on the season-ending shoulder surgery · Pelicans player page · RotoWire player page.
Correction 2026-07-18 MPG 34 to 33 and 3PM 3.1 to 2.9 (PTS 21.1 to 20.3). The minutes trim is the team board's rebalance to a valid 19,264-minute season total; the three-point cut applies an explicit fade for Jamahl Mosley, whose Orlando teams ranked 25th or worse in three-point attempt frequency in all five of his seasons and bottom-ten in accuracy in four. Murphy's 3PM line is the most schedule-exposed number on this desk. Source: Sports Illustrated on Mosley.
Fantasy translation
- Nine-category: overall band 18-32; worth an early-third-round price and a second-round selection when threes/FT% are priorities.
- Points: 35-55, with less separation from Zion Williamson because efficiency and turnovers often matter less.
- Dynasty: 20-35; age-26 prime production and scalable shooting give him the strongest long-horizon value on the roster.
Role, floor and ceiling
The base case keeps Murphy around 34 minutes and 20–22 points, even with Dejounte Murray and Zion healthy. Floor: a trade to a contender lowers him toward 18 points and 2.5 threes as a third option. Ceiling: 23-plus points, 3.5 threes and 1.5 steals if he remains New Orleans' healthiest primary scorer. His low-turnover scoring profile protects category value in either branch.
Injury and transaction monitor
Murphy missed five February games with a right-shoulder injury, three late-March games with a right-ankle sprain and then received late-season rest/shutdown treatment. Spotrac injury log, accessed 2026-07-18 New Orleans continued to field trade calls in July but reportedly wanted to keep him unless overwhelmed. Yahoo, 2026-07-08
Research shelf
- Official exit interview, 2026-04-13
- Career-high 44 points and franchise-record 12 threes, CBS/RotoWire, 2026-02-05
- Early community 9-cat board placing him No. 29, 2026-04-14
Career record
Pre-NBA: Rice for two seasons, then Virginia as a graduate transfer. Rice 2018-19: 32 games, 20.6 minutes, 8.4 points, 2.6 rebounds, 0.7 assists on .442/.421/.725, setting the school freshman three-point percentage record. Rice 2019-20: 29 games, 30.2 minutes, 13.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1.2 assists on .434/.368/.824, leading the team in scoring. Virginia 2020-21: 25 games, 29.6 minutes, 11.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.2 assists on .503/.433/.927 — a 50-40-90 season, and as of 2026 still the most recent by an NCAA player. The shooting was never a projection; it was already the best thing about him in college. Draft: 2021, first round, 17th overall by Memphis, traded to New Orleans on draft night.
| Season | Age | Team | GP | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PM | FG% | FT% | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-22 | 21 | NOP | 62 | 13.9 | 5.4 | 2.4 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.1 | 1.1 | .393 | .882 | 0.3 |
| 2022-23 | 22 | NOP | 79 | 31.0 | 14.5 | 3.6 | 1.4 | 1.1 | 0.5 | 2.6 | .484 | .905 | 0.8 |
| 2023-24 | 23 | NOP | 57 | 29.6 | 14.8 | 4.9 | 2.2 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 3.0 | .443 | .815 | 0.6 |
| 2024-25 | 24 | NOP | 53 | 35.0 | 21.2 | 5.1 | 3.5 | 1.1 | 0.7 | 3.0 | .454 | .887 | 1.9 |
| 2025-26 | 25 | NOP | 66 | 35.5 | 21.5 | 5.7 | 3.8 | 1.5 | 0.4 | 3.2 | .470 | .886 | 1.8 |
| Career | 317 | 29.0 | 15.4 | 4.3 | 2.2 | 1.0 | 0.4 | 2.6 | .459 | .878 | 1.1 |
Career three-point percentage is .382 on steadily rising volume. His single-game high is 44 points with a franchise-record 12 threes on 5 February 2026.
Fantasy history: Season-end 9-category ranks from Basketball Monster, Hashtag, or the ESPN Player Rater were not retrievable for any season, so no finishes are asserted. The category shape is exceptionally clean and has been stable since 2022-23: threes and free-throw percentage are both elite (2.6 career makes, .878 career from the line), field-goal percentage has been neutral-to-positive since he stopped being a spot-up rookie, steals are a positive, and turnovers are a real asset rather than a neutral — 1.8 per game while carrying 21.5 points is a rate almost no primary scorer matches. Rebounds are acceptable for a wing and blocks are the only true zero. Points leagues rate him meaningfully worse than categories, because his two best contributions — free-throw percentage and low turnovers — are precisely the ones points formats discount, while his scoring volume is good rather than exceptional.
Durability: 62, 79, 57, 53, 66. The shoulder is the thing that matters. 2024-25 began late with a right hamstring strain and ended on 17 March 2025 with a torn labrum and a partial rotator cuff tear in the right shoulder, a season-ending surgical injury. In 2025-26 he missed five February games with a right shoulder problem — the same shoulder — plus three late-March games with a right ankle sprain, then received rest and shutdown treatment down the stretch, totalling 16 missed games. He has now cleared 66 games once in the last three seasons and has never played 80. This is not a fragile-body profile in the general sense; it is one specific repaired joint that flared again within a year of surgery, which is a narrower but more predictive risk.
Trajectory: The leap was 2024-25 and it was genuine rather than a minutes illusion: scoring went from 18.0 points per 36 in 2023-24 to 21.8 per 36, with assists nearly doubling, so the role change from floor-spacer to on-ball scorer actually took. What 2025-26 adds is the more valuable evidence — he held that exact per-36 rate (21.8) across 13 more games while improving field-goal percentage from .454 to .470 and three-point percentage from .361 to .379, which is the signature of a skill that consolidated rather than a hot stretch that faded. The 1.5 steals were a career high by a wide margin and are the one line worth treating as partly noise; the blocks halving to 0.4 is the corresponding quiet cost. Entering his age-26 season he sits at the front of the prime window with no aging-curve concern, and the honest read is that the production is now the baseline rather than the ceiling. The two things that move his 2026-27 value are both external to skill: whether the shoulder stays quiet across a full season, and whether a trade drops him behind a better primary creator.
Career sources: ESPN career stats · StatMuse season-by-season · Wikipedia (Rice, Virginia, draft, injuries) · Spotrac injury log
Open questions
- Is Murphy extended, retained through the deadline or traded before opening night?
- Does his usage stay above 25% with Murray and Zion healthy?
- Are the shoulder and ankle fully quiet entering camp?