Spurs: Recent Murray 'Trade Rumor' is an Embarrassment

It's time to set the record straight on another "trade rumor" surrounding the San Antonio Spurs -- this time around their brightest star, Dejounte Murray.

The 25-year-old point guard is easily having the best season of his career and is in the running for the NBA Most Improved Player award, an All-Defensive Team selection, and an All-Star nod. While the Spurs have been losing far too often, their record has been the result of inconsistent performances by pretty much anyone not named Dejounte Murray or Jakob Poeltl.

Still, something resembling a rumor about Murray started floating around Twitter from an aggregator account, The NBA Central, on Monday morning.

"There's been some chatter in the league about whether the Spurs would be willing to trade [Murray]," said the tweet, quoting ESPN's Brian Windhorst. "Maybe not during the season but next summer."

Of course, the casual NBA fan sees a picture of Murray and the attached quote and thinks, "hmm, maybe my team can make a play for him." In less than 24 hours, the tweet has been quoted over 500 times and liked another 2,300. With offers like Al Horford, Dennis Schroder, and first-picks to San Antonio for Murray, the bait tweet is getting exactly the types of responses it's supposed to.

The funny thing is Windhorst isn't saying anything when you really read the words. There's been chatter about whether they'd be willing to trade him? That says nothing at all about intent or the thought process in San Antonio.

In listening to the episode of The Hoop Collective Podcast this was taken from, the entire segment talking about the Spurs sounded like the musings of someone just grasping at forming an opinion on a team he doesn't really know much about.

"Pop has his own mind. Brian Wright is their day-to-day general manager. They may have different viewpoints on the direction of the franchise," he also said in the episode. Of course, that also led to some fans on social media running away with the narrative that there may be some discourse in the Spurs' front office.

The Dejounte Murray Speculation is Less Than Nothing

One quote tweet from the NBA Central's post said it well: "Leave it to Windhorst to see a thriving young guard in a small market and start throwing around trade rumors. It's like clockwork."

When the topic of Murray came up on his podcast, Windhorst couldn't help but speculate that teams are prepared to come up with packages for him, but that doesn't really mean anything. I'm sure the Spurs are willing to package guys for Joel Embiid. Hell, let's go for Nikola Jokic while we're at it.

As Murray continues to thrive in San Antonio, get used to seeing more of this floating around as the bigger markets look to poach him, but don't expect any fire to come with the smoke. This quote from the man himself doesn't sound like someone planning to leave anytime soon.

Dejounte is right -- it can't storm forever. Something tells me he'll be around to ride it out until the Spurs are back in business.