After New Orleans Pelicans guard Dejounte Murray sounded off on his front office after a trying 2024-25 campaign, Pelicans head of basketball operations Joe Dumars responded to the harsh remarks. After a busy draft night, where Dumars traded for Derik Queen at No. 13 with the Atlanta Hawks, New Orleans addressed its relationship with Murray following his recent remarks.

Dumars says he reached out to Murray personally.

“He and I had a really good conversation. We talked the next morning,” Dumars said. “I asked him, ‘Tell me what’s happening,’ and we had a good, long talk. It won’t be a problem this year. And sometimes, when things like that happen, it’s an opportunity — an opportunity to get better as an organization. I called in the medical staff and said, ‘Let’s talk about DeJounte’s interview. What part of this can we get better at?’

“I’ve been in the league long enough to know: you don’t bury your head. You tackle it head-on. I said, ‘Okay, DeJounte, talk to me—what’s happening?’ Then I turned to the medical staff: ‘Talk to me—what’s going on? Why is he saying this? What’s behind it?’ You deal with it directly. You don’t duck it. You don’t run from it,” Dumars concluded.

Murray had a difficult season and says the Pelicans didn’t help him get through the difficulties, including rehabilitation. He suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles tendon injury.

Dejounte Murray blasts Pelicans organization for 2024-25 campaign

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Pelicans guard Dejounte Murray dealt with a death and other health scares to some of his closest family members, including his mother, during the regular season. Murray says the Pelicans organization failed him throughout this time, especially when it came to utilizing some of the NBA’s basic resources, such as booking court time.

Murray called out the Pelicans when he was a guest on The Pivot podcast.

“It was a situation where, like, I got all these problems going on,” Murray said. “I broke my hand, I’m recovering. My mom had a stroke, one of my cousins got killed, then my uncle overdosed… [During all this], I’m not getting what I need in the organization. It’s hard for me to get my training time. It’s hard for me to get lifts. It’s hard for me to get my own court time. So, you can only imagine where my mental was at.”

Pelicans head of basketball operations Joe Dumars says things are much better between the front office and Murray, and that he will look into Dejounte’s complaints.