The New Orleans Pelicans have been on the struggle bus all year, leading many to speculate that the team would make significant moves at the recent NBA trade deadline. Instead, the Pelicans mostly kept their team intact, including wing Trey Murphy III, who had numerous reported interested teams around the league.
Murphy has missed the last two games for the Pelicans due to a shoulder injury, but recently, the team got an optimistic status update on his status moving forward.
“James Borrego said Trey Murphy did not go through practice today, but the hope remains that Murphy's absence won't be a long one,” reported Will Guillory of The Athletic on X, formerly Twitter.
Murphy is one of the more talented players on the Pelicans roster, boasting the combination of three-point shooting, defense, and versatility that every NBA team is looking for these days.
Injuries have been a big concern for the wing in recent seasons, as they have been for several players on New Orleans' roster, but with the Pelicans essentially already out of the picture for postseason contention in the Western Conference, they are right to be as cautious as needed with him.
Unfortunately for the Pelicans, the team does not own its pick in this summer's NBA Draft, having traded that selection to the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for the right to draft Derik Queen. While Queen has been solid thus far in his rookie season, Pelicans fans are still not exactly thrilled that they won't have a chance to draft one of the premier talents at the top of what is anticipated to be a loaded 2026 draft class.
For the rest of the year, the Pelicans will likely pour their energy into developing the young players on their roster and trying to build some sort of sustainable system moving forward.
They'll next take the floor on Tuesday evening at home vs the Golden State Warriors.
