Preseason felt like a success for the New Orleans Pelicans, who finished 3-1, but the bigger story was sophomore guard Jeremiah Fears.
The now-second-year guard looked ready to take on the mantle as the Pelicans' franchise player during preseason. His swagger, skill, speed, and the way New Orleans could play on both ends with him out there looked exactly like what Mosley wanted: turning the other team over a ton and playing fast. This has created a question-mark-filled future for Dejounte Murray as the Pelicans head into the regular season. Murray's toe injury after one preseason game created this opportunity for Fears, and he ran with it—now many fans believe the Pelicans can’t strip Fears of that starting spot.
The easy solution is to send Murray to the bench, but pro sports don’t work that way. Money, experience, and egos all matter when making these types of decisions. Murray is the veteran, and he’s on a $30-plus million contract, and that pay cheque essentially says he’s a starting guard. So flat-out benching him doesn’t feel like a real option for Mosley.
This has restarted the rumor mill among the fan base that it may be time to pull the plug on the Murray experiment and trade him.
What will Mosley do?
Obviously, with the Pelicans season tipping off in a day's time, trading Murray doesn’t feel like a viable option and probably would destroy any chemistry this group built through the preseason. So what does Mosley do if Murray is cleared to play? It’s hard because even I, as someone who's gone up to bat for Dejounte Murray countless times against other people in the fan base, but even I don’t want to go back to watching Fears run with the second unit.
The most joy I’ve felt watching the Pelicans since I started covering them was genuinely when Fears started games this preseason. The speed, the ability to create highlight plays with lobs and ankle breakers, and the pace the team plays at when he’s running the show were awesome.
I say all that to say there may not be a real choice for Mosley on who starts and who comes off the bench. It would be one thing if he had the data on a lineup with a Fears-and-Murray backcourt, because starting them together could kill two birds with one stone. It would keep Murray happy while still giving Fears starting reps to speed up his development. But because Murray got hurt, that data doesn’t exist.
The only thing working for Fears when it comes to this decision is that the Pelicans haven’t been pressured in the past to start Jordan Poole. JP is making more than Murray and is in a similar spot as a veteran guard. Yet he’s spent most of his Pelicans career, including all of preseason, as a reserve, so the contracts players are on may not affect Mosley’s lineup.
That being said, I just find it hard to envision Murray not starting if he’s 100 percent and ready to play come Wednesday night. He’s the veteran, he made it back from a massive injury last year, is a leader, and has never gotten a legit chance to be the team's starting point guard to start a season. Preseason showed us that Fears is the point guard of the future and is too good not to get that starting spot at some point this season. But until the time is right to move on from Dejounte Murray, the Pelicans will have to wait things out with him as their lead guard.
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