The Hawks are trading guard Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
In exchange for Murray, the Pelicans are sending forward Larry Nance Jr., 2022 No. 8 overall pick Dyson Daniels, and two first-round picks to Atlanta, Shams Charania of The Athletic reports (Twitter links). Forward E.J. Liddell will also head to the Hawks in the deal, per Christian Clark of NOLA.com (Twitter link).
According to Wojnarowski (Twitter link), the picks the Pelicans are sending the Hawks in the deal are the Lakers’ 2025 first-round selection and a 2027 first-rounder, which will be the least favorable of the Bucks’ and Pelicans’ picks.
The Hawks originally acquired Murray from the Spurs in 2022 to pair him with star guard Trae Young. Atlanta sacrificed several draft assets – including its own unprotected 2025 and 2027 first-round picks and an unprotected 2026 first-round swap – to give Young a running mate in the backcourt, but the duo never really thrived as hoped.
While Murray was individually solid — averaging 21.5 points per game across 152 appearances with Atlanta over two seasons — the Hawks floundered as a team. Atlanta went 77-87 in Murray’s two years with the team and made the playoffs just once, losing in the first round to Boston in 2023. The Hawks were eliminated in the first play-in game this spring.
With the Hawks struggling at the midpoint of the 2023/24 season, Murray’s name began to come up in trade conversations ahead of the deadline. The Lakers were among the potential destinations mentioned most frequently, but the Hawks opted to not move him at that time.
For the Pelicans, this trade signals they’re looking to continue to climb the Western Conference standings after making the playoffs this season. Murray will provide added offense for a team that went 2-14 in close games last season, and Christian Clark of NOLA.com (Twitter link) says New Orleans believes he and CJ McCollum can coexist. McCollum thrived in an off-ball role last season, Clark notes.
As Wojnarowski reports (Twitter link), the Pelicans are still trying to come to terms on a middle ground with Brandon Ingram on a contract extension. Ingram’s name has frequently come up in trade rumors this offseason, with the expectation being that he’ll end up on the trade block if he and New Orleans don’t agree to an extension. Multiple reports have indicated that the Pelicans don’t intend to offer the forward another maximum-salary deal as he enters the final year of his current max contract.
Once this deal for Murray is completed, the Pelicans will find themselves just $4.7MM under the luxury tax line for 11 players, tweets cap expert Yossi Gozlan. They’ve never paid the luxury tax before and will need frontcourt depth, with just Zion Williamson, Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, and rookie Yves Missi as options for those spots, so it’s safe to assume more moves are coming, including possibly something involving Ingram.
As for the Hawks, trading Murray is a clear signal they’re willing to hear offers on most of their players. Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports reported this morning that everyone on the roster except for Jalen Johnson and Zaccharie Risacher are on the table. That list of trade candidates – which features veterans like Clint Capela and De’Andre Hunter – could also include Young, though there was an expectation that Atlanta would likely just trade one of him or Murray — not necessarily both.
Young, like Murray, has been brought up in trade rumors since the start of the offseason and it sounds like the Hawks have at least entertained offers for their three-time All-Star. We’ll likely get more clarity on both Ingram and Young’s situations with the Pelicans and Hawks in the coming days.
Assuming New Orleans and Atlanta complete this deal as reported, with no pieces added and no other teams involved, the Pelicans will be hard-capped at the $178.7MM first apron for the 2024/25, ESPN’s Bobby Marks tweets, since they’re taking back more salary than they’re sending out.
The Pelicans and Hawks will also have to take into account Murray’s trade bonus, which had been the largest in the NBA — it’s worth over $12MM, tweets Marks. It will be spread out across three seasons, starting in 2024/25, increasing the guard’s cap hits by approximately $4MM per season. So instead of counting for $25.27MM toward the cap in 2024/25, he’ll have a cap hit of $29.27MM. The trade bonus bump isn’t applied to his player option year in 2027/28.
While the Pelicans must take on Murray’s larger cap hits, the Hawks will be responsible for paying the bonus, Marks notes. There’s also a possibility that Murray will agree to waive some or all of his trade bonus, which would make salary-matching simpler. If he gets his full bonus, the Pelicans will likely need to add more salary for matching purposes.
After sending AJ Griffin to Houston, the Hawks will save some more money in this deal as they acquire Nance’s expiring $11.21MM deal, Daniels’ rookie scale contract ($6.06MM in 2024/25), and Liddell’s minimum-salary pact ($2.12MM). According to Marks (Twitter link), the team’s salary now projects to be about $5.5MM below the luxury tax line with 14 players under contract.
Atlanta will hold team options on both Daniels and Liddell for the 2025/26 season.
Luke Adams contributed to this story.
Outstanding deal for the Pelicans. Love it.
Agreed. Feel bad for Hawks fans, not going to be competitive for awhile, even in the East.
My grade on this deal
Pelicans B+
Hawks C
Lakers D
Nowadays two first round picks is like two pieces of candy
Yessir. Can’t believe they’re gonna pull this off without shipping out BI, Herb, or Trey
BI is getting traded 100% if they don’t get an extension done
But they already got Murray, so they could get a really nice return from BI to pair up with DM and Zion
That moves NO up in the top 4 in the west.
Maybe. Zion and health are important factors
Griffin is much smarter than Landry Fields. Those two picks are bad ones.
3 New Playoffs lock teams
Grizzlies, Kings, Pelicans
5 Old playoffs lock teams
Thunder
Nuggets
Wolves
Clippers
Mavs
What does it means?
Suns and Lakers are championship teams but they are likely to miss the playoffs
Nahhh…you have to see how these guys mesh. He has zero effect on wins for Atlanta so why assume this move will equal wins? We have to see how they can make it work. It’s not like when Boston added Jrue or Kristaoa or even the Knicks adding Bridges.
What the hell? That’s what Murray costs this offseason? That’s a pathetic outcome for the Hawks.
Even since Ressler installed his son in the front office they’ve been a trainwreck IMO. I know Schlenk wasn’t perfect, but I thought he had them on the right general track.
Everyone blaming the younger Ressler, but someone further up the chain is causing all of this by their refusal to get rid of Trae Young. They just keep compounding the issue. I really just don’t believe Fields or Ress JR are this incompetent. Maybe there is more to come .. or maybe they just can’t get anything for Young.
Good for Murray. Glad he is getting away from this nonsense.
Definitely possible. Whatever the cause, until it’s rooted out we can unfortunately expect more of these, ahem, questionable decisions.
You mean can’t get what they feel is enough for Trae? Certainly they can get a could of firsts but maybe they’re asking for a Donovan Mitchell or Rudy Gobert package?
They could have gotten more I’m sure from someone but the return for Young would much worse. They tried to move him but he no one wants to send any assets and they don’t want his CONTRACT.
I know! Damn!! Warriors coulda given Hawks WAY BETTER talent than Pelicans did. Missed opportunity for both sides. Shoot…..I guess PG13 might be the way to go now- DMurray off the list and Jimmy Buckets and Giannis are pipe dreams.
What was Landry Fields thinking? Or he wasn’t?
Atlanta just got taken advantage of. Thats crazy
I can only assume the bet is the Lakers will be mediocre or have entered a rebuild by 2025. Which, sure, maybe that happens but it DEFINITELY has to happen for this to not look like an awful deal for a good/very good player on a nice contract.
What was the lakers offering is the question? Reeves, Vanderbilt, and Rui but then Atlanta would need to send more players because of the cap situation. So could this mean Brandon Ingrahm is going to GSW for CP3, Moody, and a 1st rounder?
Pelicans need to move CJ.(Magic,Spurs,Utah, Philly) Keep the rest intact and Atlanta needs to change its name to the Birds. Sorry ass franchise!
Jazz don’t want or need another undersized guard that doesn’t play defense
Hey they do have one NBA championship
After what the Knicks gave up for Bridges, this is insanely light…
Exactly! Knicks FO making Atlanta’s look completely incompetent.
In this case, for apples to apples, it would be Sean Marks in the Nets’ FO making the Hawks’ FO look incompetent. The Nets got four first rounders and a couple pick swaps for a guy who made it clear that the Knicks were the team where he wanted to go. I highly doubt the Pelicans had the Hawks over a barrel the way the Knicks had the Nets, assuming the Nets weren’t planning to just hold onto him.
Nets*
The picks the Knicks gave up will most likely be in the 20’s, and if they walk away with a championship or two, the deal was well worth it.
Well yeah, “If they win a championship or tw0” any deal is worth it.
As a Spurs fan, I say thank you Hawks! Those future assets looking juicy.
Thise Hawks are in for a long rebuild…
Hawks are tanking.
They should trade away Trae Young tonight.
If they are tanking, confusing given they don’t have their next 3 first round picks.
Live by Trae Die by Trae. We are in it for the long haul.
Hawks should be okay. Just a couple trades
Huge.
I’ve never felt Pelicans could contend because Zion will always be injured, but this puts them squarely into the top 5 in the West.
If Pels keep BI, and re-sign Jonas, they are looking good!
@HeatMike, No cap space for BI, he’s got to be traded for an expiring contract.
They can sign him, they would just put themselves deep into the luxury tax and the owners won’t want to do that. They already do cap gymnastics every year with the Saints.
This is a heist for the Pelicans. I can’t believe he only cost two mid-1st round picks. All the contenders in the NBA and none could top this offer? They must have been determined to ship him west.
And the 2027 is actually the least favorable of Milw or NO .. something tells me it will be in the mid 20’s ..
I hate being a Hawks fan. Have to be one of the worst run franchises in all sports over the last 30 years.
Yea at minimum they should have got the best of those 2 , tough
Once again Sankara shows us how much he knows his team ……
Sarr calked it ….. Hawks are hapless, hopeless, and lost …….
What a MESS ………
Hawks should change their name. To
The Pigeons …….
As a New York guy you should know Pigeons are scrappy bad-asses, which these guys are not. Doves may have been more appropriate.
Yeah I was thinking of the commercial. Where pigeons wonder why they are not used in a sports team name…..
You do know Hawks hunt pigeons.
Not these Hawks
First Doncic now Sarr. Atlanta are a funny lot.
I’m not a fan of this from either side, but Murray should still help New Orleans, if they use him right. They weren’t using Daniels anyway, despite his ability to play at the 1-3 spots…I only say that about them getting Murray b/c they’ve needed to simplify their rotation, and he is another guy that needs the ball in his hands/takes usage away from certain others
As for Atlanta, one of New Orleans many options on the wing would have been a better target. Larry Nance is a good player, but they don’t need him at smallball 5; they have Jalen Johnson…I guess Daniels theoretically fits better next to Trae/Bogdanovic and guys like Risacher/Lundy/Hunter. I feel like they’re short an asset here, though they’re seemingly ignoring asset management with the moves they’ve made lately, and they still added interesting options in the draft
Agreed with the fit concerns regarding Murray, especially since I’ve always felt he’s a little overrated by folks who only look at the popcorn numbers. That said, given his reasonable contract and the modest cost involved, it’s hard to blame them for taking the swing.
One of those weird deals where I like it from a price perspective but still don’t expect it to work out (unless the Pelicans have several more moves planned)
He’s a guard that needs the ball in his hands; needs shooting around him, and can’t have too many other ball stoppers on the floor with him; defends the guard spots though, so that obviously is great…if he was a bit better off ball/as a spacer, he’s incredible. Not taking away from him, but I’m not talking about his individual ability when evaluating a roster
Trading CJ might make sense here, though it’s hard to find spots for guards like that
Playing next to Murray is a good fit for a guard like McCollum, he’s use to playing off ball and he can shoot while Murray can help make up for CJ’s defensive short comings. I just don’t know if Zion and Murray are a great fit.
I agree with that last part, and theoretically, yoy would be right they can play the 2 guards together in certain lineups, but I think it takes away from each other more than it complements, b/c of other guys who would theoretically b on the floor with them, but also just taking taking the ball out of each other’s hands, and having multiple guards out there. I just think it’s not as good. Same idea as me not liking the starting combo of Lowry and Herro. I’d rather CJ be a 6th man in that scenario, which they obviously won’t do
I can’t remember everything new Orleans did the last couple of days though, so that might impact how I feel about their options.
Either way, they need to finally use guys in better situations/in the right positions/on the floornwith the right combinations…I would have had Valanciunas as a primary option off the bench, etc
Sankara …….. right now is creating a new name. ….
Pels ………. good one.
What Pels need most. Is a chef …..
If it’s a chef they need, they better keep looking. Murray’s a dependable seasoned line cook at best.
I like Murray … thinking of guy who needs to keep his weight in chk.
Murray? He’s a solid two way player that is capable of triple doubles nightly. The Hawks were not the team for him as he was not used properly. I’m sure the Pelicans will take full advantage of his skill set.
Might be the start of a hard reset for the HAWKS …. if it is, Trae could be next.
He should of been first to keep his value up…
Letting go of Murray for so little hurts Trae’s value as the other GMs see a GM they can take advantage of…
Or more likely…nobody wanted to give up much for Trae Young for multiple reasons
Return for the hawks seems so light that there got to be at least 5 contending teams out there regretting not making a call like “damn that’s all it took?”
Bad move by the hawks. You wont go anywhere with trae.should kept murray and trade away young…. Thats sankara mind, not my mind. I feel u sankara….
Great deal from the Hawks perspective. The backcourt pairing of Young/Murray wasn’t working out so they traded Murray to New Orleans for basically what they gave up a ’25 and ’27 first minus the swap but pick Nance instead. Nance is a versatile defender and can space the floor. It also opens up more opportunities for Bufkin, Risacher and Daniels and they didn’t have to give up their franchise player.
Not so sure for the Pelicans. With Zion they need a PG that can shoot and attack out of the pick and roll with Zion. Murray has had one decent season shooting the ball but that was with a gifted passer like Young setting him up. He’s also hasn’t done much in the past our the pick and roll other than dribble into midrange jumpers. On the plus side it frees up CJ to play his more natural role as a combo guard.
I keep forgetting about Bufkin and Lundy, with Atlanta for some reason…
EJ Liddell time in Nola
he’s reportedly going to Atl
Interesting that they kept Ingram. Not a lateral move now, much better overall team.
Another chip of the board for the Sixers to pursue.
You know the joker scene in Dark Knight? Is it time to panic?
IMO larry Nance underrated, Murray overrated. I think derozan is a better fit as a locker room guy who can ball i.e. a reset on the cj spot. Maybe you put cj in the package or Ingram and get Patrick Williams. On paper it seems like pelicans win but I don’t trust it. They have maturity issues and Murray ain’t fixing them
That’s all ot took to acquire Murray?
Seriously?
Hawks aren’t serious about the NBA… They’re going be a joke until managements is changed…
This hampers their ability to rebuild as they aren’t getting the players worth in return…
Gonna struggle to not get low balled on trade offers for the foreseeable future… As the other GMs react to this trade…
Until they trade Trae this team is going nowhere fast anyway…
That’s pretty much all it took to acquire Murray when the Hawks did so. He’s a good player but he’s only had one great season, he isn’t a creator or a great shooter and while he’s still decent he just doesn’t play defense like he use to.
Thing is it looks like it’s working out for SA because the Hawks are going to be a lottery team for the next 3 years after this trade. The picks heading to Atlanta are completely up in the air but sure doesn’t look good. Seems like they could’ve got at least one more first round pick or a swap.
Yup. When I said they didn’t deserve the top pick I was right.
O so they’re also getting Liddell, assuming he stays on the roatsr…they have a lot of guys at the 4, after giving up guys there as well…Lindell reminded me of Paul Reed/Paul Milsap in his draft, before he got hurt…still moving parts for them moving forward, probably
They look good on 2k
Murray becomes the 2nd best player for little.
CJ won’t need to handle the ball as much.
Not a BI fan he seems to just be meh and never takes over when needed.
Atlanta trying their best to start a rebuild without going 100% in that direction….
Trae Risacher Jalen leaves some hope but not much for a side that not so long ago had a deep playoff run and was looking really promising.
Excellent deal for New Orleans, give up some picks, Daniel’s who didn’t look like a long term piece although talented and a nice role player in Larry. I’d love to see them commit to this aggressive approach to be better by trading Ingram for a centre. You’ve got Herb and Trey who are more than capable on the wing in replacing him.
Jarrett Allen would be fantastic.
Mitchell Robinson could certainly fill the hole but unlikely considering the wings the Knicks have but I wouldn’t write it off.
Portland maybe looking to offload Ayton and/or Rob Williams…
Then there were rumblings about Walker Kessler
Don’t think they should or would move Herb Jones, and they can’t salary match without him now that they’ve moved Daniels and Nance, in a lesser version, so what about Duncan Robinson, Terry Rozier, Thomas Bryant, and Tyler Herro for Ingram and McCollum? Heat also throw in a 1st/ke’lel Ware/replace Bryant with Ware
1 of Rozier/Herro comes off the bench for NO. NO signs another option at the 4/3 for depth. That gives them a lot of money stuck on guards though…
Sankara. ….. where you at.
You’ve cried enough lol. It’s just a game.
Trae will lead in scoring and ast. Now.
Hawks truly are clueless. Trae should definitely ask to be dealt.
Trae is a worse defender and can’t operate without the ball. He would give them less of a return.
This approximates the price ATL was asking for Murray at the deadline (2 FRPs, and a young rotation player, of no particular quality), and nobody believed it. Truth is Murray was playing out of position and/or with TY (take your pick) and it hurt his value. I think Murray if he can back to playing PG (and not as the big guard at 180lbs) can recapture his some of his value, and it would be steal for NOP. But no trade partner is going to offer up assets as though he’s already done it. As far as ATL is concerned, this is the price of leading from behind.