The NBA’s silly season has arrived in full, as the days leading up to the Draft always feature a bevy of rumors as teams, players, and agents all look to leverage their various positions against each other.
After the Blazers landed Jerami Grant in a trade from the Pistons for a future first rounder, the NBA’s hot stove kicked into high gear, as further posturing and intel leaked out into the public. There was Portland’s desire to land OG Anunoby with the seventh pick, plenty of rumblings about teams looking to move up and down on draft night, and maybe the most interesting news of them all came late in the evening as word broke another All-Star might find his way onto the market.
Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report offered up a new notebook of info he’s heard that included the first indication that the Spurs were open to discussing trade offers for All-Star guard Dejounte Murray, for a steep price, with the oft-mentioned Atlanta Hawks as the team that’s gone the furthest down the road in discussions, as they continue to shop John Collins.
The Spurs are fielding offers for Murray and have told multiple interested teams it would take a “Jrue Holiday-like package” for San Antonio to part with the 25-year-old floor general, setting a rough benchmark of three first-round picks for any suitor to pry Murray free. San Antonio’s most significant discussions regarding Murray have seemed to occur with the Atlanta Hawks, in a framework that would send Collins back to the Spurs, league sources told B/R.
Holiday’s trade to the Bucks rather famously broke the trade value scale league-wide, as Milwaukee was backed into a corner amid the failed Bogdan Bogdanovic deal to salvage something and get a deal done — which ultimately worked out in bringing a title to Milwaukee. Murray is a fascinating player, coming off a breakout year that saw him make the leap into All-Star form, with tremendous defensive chops and an ever-growing array of offensive skills. Still, he’s not a particularly good shooter (46.2/32.7/79.4 splits last year) so the ideal situation seems to be on a team with an elite shooter. That’s not an issue in Atlanta, where the Hawks would love to pair Trae Young with a defensive minded guard who can alleviate some ball-handling duties, and Murray would be an apparently snug fit in that role. The question, of course, is whether Collins’ inclusion in the deal would lower the Spurs’ request of three first round picks, and that is surely the hold up keeping these discussions from getting particularly serious.
For Murray’s part, he’s doing what he can to drum up some buzz thanks to his eye emoji tweet from Tuesday, a tried and true classic for NBA players to draw attention in the offseason.
— Dejounte Murray (@DejounteMurray) June 21, 2022
From the Spurs perspective, getting Collins would not seem like a move made with a long rebuild in mind and would be a bit curious, but the big man was linked to San Antonio a year ago in free agency and so the interest between the two has long been established. If the Hawks move Collins elsewhere, as is expected on draft night, plenty of other teams would love to add Murray, but it remains to be seen if anyone is willing to give up the haul of picks San Antonio is seeking this summer.
Source: https://uproxx.com/dimemag/spurs-dejounte-murray-trade-rumors-john-collins-hawks/