San Antonio Spurs: Discussing a potential Dejounte Murray extension

San Antonio Spurs guard Dejounte Murray is eligible for a contract extension this offseason, but his torn ACL makes it a complicated scenario.

There was a lot of buzz about Dejounte Murray taking the next step in his third season with the San Antonio Spurs.

While Murray was already a member of the All-Defensive team ranking first among point guards in defensive real plus-minus by a wide margin in 2017-18, he still had a lot of work to do on the offensive end of the floor.

Rumors were floating around that Murray was starting to hit more threes and that his playmaking abilities had improved a ton during the summer of 2018, but we never got to see proof of that on the floor after he suffered a season-ending ACL injury in October.

The 22-year-old point guard will be entering the final year of his rookie contract next season, and he could hit restricted free agency in the summer of 2020 if the Spurs don’t come to an agreement with his representatives on a contract extension before then.

It’s worth mentioning that Murray is represented by Klutch Sports, and they haven’t been the easiest agency to negotiate with recently with the prime example being the Anthony Davis situation.

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There’s no doubt that San Antonio views him as an essential piece of their young core, but the team may have a different opinion of his value than Murray does as he comes off of this injury.

ACL injuries don’t have some of the negative ramifications that they used to, but the Spurs’ front office probably wants to see how Murray’s body bounces back next season before they sign him to a long-term deal.

San Antonio might want to take a gamble that Murray’s health will be fine in the future but still try to get him at a discount after spending an entire season on the sidelines.

I believe Dejounte will want to bet on himself this year and show that all the buzz about his improved offensive game last summer was legitimate. If he does play well next season, Murray will surely get more money in a deal next summer than he would this offseason.

Unfortunately, the Spurs won’t get the benefit of seeing him play much before they have to make a decision. The deadline for extending rookie contracts comes in October, and Murray won’t have much regular season action under his belt by then.

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If a deal does get done, it probably won’t happen until the front office gets to see how Murray looks in training camp coming off of this injury.

This saga will probably be an underlying storyline all summer long, and it may stretch into the season if the two sides can’t come to an agreement by that October deadline.