Dejounte Murray and the Atlanta Hawks are currently in the midst of what figures to be a crossroads offseason as for the future direction of the franchise after the team's highly frustrating 2023-24 campaign. Although Murray had arguably the best season of his career this year from a statistical perspective, the Hawks once again struggled to put together wins on a consistent basis, ultimately being escorted out of the Play-In tournament by the Chicago Bulls in blowout fashion.
For about a year now, rumors have been swirling about the Hawks and what they might do about their backcourt which features Murray and of course multi-time All-Star Trae Young.
Recently, a report surfaced from Ben Anderson of Utah’s KSL Sports that the Hawks and the Utah Jazz had considered a trade that would have sent Dejounte Murray west in exchange for Utah's Keyonte George, but that the Jazz ultimately turned it down.
Now, Murray himself is responding to that report.
“Don’t BELIEVE EVERYTHING You See On This Dumb A** INTERNET!!!!!” wrote Murray in a post on his account on X, the social media platform formerly referred to as Twitter, quote tweeting a post from NBACentral about the report.
Where do the Hawks go from here?
The Hawks' offseason situation got a whole lot more complicated recently when it was announced that the team had won the NBA Draft Lottery, meaning they have the number one pick in this year's NBA Draft, which of course is projected by many pundits to be the worst draft class in recent league history.
Still, having the number one in any draft is better than not having the number one pick in said draft and should give the team a degree of flexibility as they navigate what figures to be a highly consequential offseason.
The team now has two full seasons' worth of evidence that, for as good as they are individually, Trae Young and Dejounte Murray do not work together as a starting backcourt. There are too many similarities and overlaps in their game, and neither one is particularly good at or seemingly willing to move much when they don't have the ball in their hands. Furthermore, Murray's defense has not lived up to the promise of the former All Defensive team member that Hawks fans thought they were getting when his trade from the San Antonio Spurs was announced two summers ago.
Some might argue that the natural inclination for the Hawks would be simply to blow it up by trading both Young and Murray away and rebuilding, but that notion is complicated by the fact that Atlanta does not control its next three first round draft picks due to the Murray trade, so unless they were to facilitate a deal with the Spurs to get those picks back, a rebuild would be rather fruitless.
In any case, the primary concern for Atlanta right now revolves around what they will do with the number one pick they now somehow own, and whether they want to trade it to try to make the team better now or draft a prospect that could impact winning down the road.
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