Dejounte Murray’s contract may give Pelicans a saving grace

The New Orleans Pelicans' 2024-25 NBA season has not gotten off to a very good start. After getting blown out by the Orlando Magic sans Paolo Banchero, 88-115, they now sit at 3-7, good for the 14th seed in the Western Conference. Their title odds have plunged in kind. Not only have they dug themselves up an abysmal hole in the early season, they've also racked up multiple injuries that'll keep a good chunk of their core out for the foreseeable future.

With how stacked the West is this year, there's a chance that this horrid start might be enough to end the Pelicans' playoff hopes altogether. After starting off the previous summer by trading for Dejounte Murray to go "all in" on a title pursuit, New Orleans's championship chase may have ended before it really even got started, with Murray going down with a fractured left hand in his very first game with his new team.

The bad news doesn't end there, either. The Pelicans may be among the basement-dwellers of the league right now in terms of record, but their payroll screams of a team trying to win the Finals. New Orleans has four players making over $30 million in average annual value on the roster — Zion Williamson, Brandon Ingram, CJ McCollum, and DJM — and sit about $3.5 million above the luxury tax according to Spotrac's Keith Smith. New Orleans is one of only two teams to have never paid the tax, along with the Charlotte Hornets, and they'll have to be shrewd in their roster building to avoid crossing the threshold. Thankfully, Dejounte Murray's contract could give them some unforeseen windfalls.

Dejounte Murray's contract might not be as costly for the Pelicans as expected

There's been a ton of talk about the NBA's infamous new second apron, a mark $17.5 million above the luxury tax line that imposes heavy penalties for any team that breaches it. While the second apron does have some seriously damaging consequences for offenders, the first apron and its effects are a bit understated.

The Pelicans are less than $2.5 million below the first apron. If they were to enter it, their flexibility to make further roster moves would become severely hampered. Within the first apron, teams can become hard-capped for six different reasons:

1. Signing a player using the taxpayer midlevel exception, granted it's for more than the non-taxpayer amount

2. Signing a buyout player for more than the TPMLE

3. Signing a player using their biannual exception

4. Adding a player via sign-and-trade

5. Receiving more than 100% salary-matching in a trade

6. Using a traded player exception from a previous season

Doing almost any of those things would push the Pelicans into the first apron and hard-cap them.

Naturally, as a franchise that has so staunchly avoided the luxury tax, New Orleans will be looking to shed salary soon. They could do it through trade, like when they dumped Kira Lewis Jr.'s contract. But, there's a way that the Pelicans can save the Benson family some money without "doing" anything at all.

That's because Dejounte Murray's contract is contingent on a variety of different performance bonuses. We're all rooting for him to thrive once he returns and get all of the money he deserves, but some of his bonuses require him to play 65 games. Through 10 games, he's only played one and isn't expected back until mid-December. Depending on when he's healthy again, it could leave him with little to no wiggle room to earn those bonuses. This could wind up making a world of difference for the Pelicans and their ability to improve the roster down the road.