{"id":625415,"date":"2026-02-26T05:29:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T05:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625415\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T05:29:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T05:29:24","slug":"former-uw-star-dejounte-murray-returns-to-nba-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/625415\/","title":{"rendered":"Former UW star Dejounte Murray returns to NBA action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 25, 2026, 5:00 p.m. PT<\/p>\n

Nearly 14 months after he tore his Achilles tendon,<\/a> former Washington Huskies<\/a> star Dejounte Murray made his NBA return with the New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

In a 113-109 win over the Golden State Warriors, Murray came off the bench and played 25 minutes, finishing his day with 13 points, which included a layup with 1:04 to play to give the Pelicans a two-possession lead, and added 3 assists, 2 rebounds, and a steal.<\/p>\n

“Just to see him out there competing again, looked like his old self,” Pelicans interim head coach James Borrego said of Murray. “He didn\u2019t miss a beat, and he\u2019s only going to get better from here…Dejounte was fantastic tonight. He helped us close, made a big shot, kept us in our stuff late. Big clutch win for our group. Learning how to close together is really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

While he also showed some signs of rust with 5 turnovers, Murray, who signed a four-year, $114 million contract extension with the Atlanta Hawks before he was traded to New Orleans, was just happy to be back on the court after a long layoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of excuses for a chump to be like, \u2018Nah. I ain\u2019t playing,\u2019 And I\u2019m the opposite of that,” Murray told Brett Martel<\/a> of the Associated Press. “What I\u2019ve been through, what I go through, I use that all to fuel the fire.”<\/p>\n

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With the Pelicans sitting at 17-42 on the season, in second-to-last place in the Western Conference, Murray could have easily chosen to preserve his health by choosing to continue his rehab for the final 24 games of the season. However, the 29-year-old isn’t focused on that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for me, I love the game, and I put myself in a position to be able to say I want to go out and play for not only my family and organization, but also the City of New Orleans,\u201d Murray said. \u201cI feel like my best basketball is ahead of me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 25, 2026, 5:00 p.m. PT Nearly 14 months after he tore his Achilles tendon, former Washington Huskies…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3796],"tags":[72400,7,6,478,470,4073,4072,675,82220,73480,72404,72457,72452,78632,72444,72422,72429,72405,72526,72406,77885,82221,72403],"class_list":["post-625415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanspelicans","tag-pelicans","tag-sstssportscollegehuskiesmens-basketball","tag-sstsnmens-basketball","tag-tagbasketball","tag-tagbig-10-hub","tag-tagcollege-sports","tag-tagdejounte-murray","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnba","tag-tagnew-orleans-pelicans","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsmg-timely","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagwashington-huskies","tag-tagwashington-huskies-mens-basketball","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116135288067287042","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}