In a cruel twist of fate for the New Orleans Pelicans, star guard Dejounte Murray fractured his hand on the first big slate of this NBA season. You can follow our live injury updates here. His injury presumably occurred here, late in the fourth quarter as he attempted a three-point dagger over Zach LaVine:
Murray is coming off a pair of strong seasons in Atlanta, averaging 21.5 PPG, 5.3 RPG, and 6.3 APG across both. His stats went down across the board following his departure from San Antonio, but Murray proved to be an effective on-ball defender and secondary playmaker to Trae Young.
The Pelicans rolled out Murray as their starting point guard for their opening game against the Bulls, but now have to look for other answers for their back court for the time being. As will you.
Presumably, CJ McCollum stands to soak up Murray’s usage as he recovers, but other enticing options on this team can fill in Murray’s gap.
Fan-favorite Jose Alvarado is a 26-year-old guard from Georgia Tech who has made an impact for the Pelicans with frisky defense and respectable shooting from beyond the arc in a reserve role. He will see a slight uptick in minutes in Murray’s absence and will be a reasonable replacement for the time being if you need steals and threes. Per 36 minutes, Alvarado has career averages of 14.5 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 5.2 APG, and 2.2 SPG. There’s no telling whether he’ll exceed the 25 minute per game mark since Murray’s injury occurred late, but he’s a reasonable candidate to see a minutes bump.
Jordan Hawkins is a second-year pro out of UConn who appeared in a reserve role in 67 games for the Pels last season. We could also envision a minutes bump for him. In his rookie season, he posted per 36 averages of 16.3 PPG and 4.6 RPG with a decent 36.6% from three. He’s the guy we’re eyeing if you want points and threes. Or maybe the guy you grab if you can’t get Alvarado. Keep in mind that neither Zion Williamson nor newly-signed Trey Murphy played last night. It’s possible that both Alvarado and Hawkins both get a slight minutes bump, but not enough to propel either to relevant fantasy territory. But fantasy is for the opportunistic, not the reserved. Don’t be gun-shy about aggressively scooping up fliers.
We don’t know what Murray’s return timetable looks like yet, but we can extrapolate based on Steph Curry’s injury in 2019. Curry broke his hand in late October 2019 and returned three months later in March 2020.
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