By Mirin Fader | The Athletic, 2026-02-24 10:30:47
德章泰·穆雷 (Dejounte Murray) 感到心情沉重。而且，每一天都比前一天更加压抑。他说，“一片乌云”笼罩在他头顶。这片云久久不散，吞噬了他的思绪和情感。
“一切，”穆雷说，“都陷入了黑暗。”
那是2024年6月。亚特兰大老鹰队刚刚将他交易到了新奥尔良。
当时空气中充满了兴奋的情绪；人们寄希望于他能与蔡恩·威廉姆斯 (Zion Williamson) 和布兰登·英格拉姆 (Brandon Ingram) 组成强大的三巨头，帮助新奥尔良鹈鹕队实现翻身。甚至在换队之前，一切都进展得很好。现在回想起来，他揣测那一切甚至好得有些“过头”了。在2022年凭借在圣安东尼奥马刺队的表现入选全明星后，穆雷在亚特兰大的场均得分创下了职业生涯新高。从外界看来，在其他年轻球星身边获得的新机会，似乎能让他重返全明星行列。
但每当他离开鹈鹕队的训练馆，最终独自面对思绪和现实时，他都会感到一种破碎的痛苦。“很多人并不知道，”穆雷说，“生活中的很多事情都跌入了谷底。”
首先，在他的2024-25赛季首场比赛前一周，他的母亲中风了。他飞回了成长的家乡西雅图去看望她。在医院里，母亲几乎无法说话，显得无助。
接着，他在揭幕战中左手骨折，被迫接受手术并缺席了17场比赛。
然后，他的堂兄被杀害了。
接着，他的叔叔因药物过量离世。
最后，在2025年1月，他遭遇了足以导致赛季报销的右侧跟腱断裂。
“真的受够了，”穆雷说。
这一连串的打击显得极不寻常——这和他职业生涯中本该处于黄金期的经历完全不同。自2016年在首轮末被马刺队选中以来，穆雷一直在稳步提升自己的球技，展现出了作为一名高得分威胁球员的巨大潜力。当他在2022年6月入选全明星后不久被交易到亚特兰大时，他想证明自己可以承担更大的责任，与球队当家球星特雷·杨 (Trae Young) 组成后场双枪。他的个人数据依然出色，但球队始终未能实现腾飞。
加入鹈鹕后，在个人生活中接连遭受毁灭性打击，这种重量有时让他感到难以承受。“从场内到场外，这简直是我职业生涯中最糟糕的三个月，”穆雷说，“我根本无法专注于篮球。”
他最终让自己去感受这一切的重量——并宣泄他的悲痛。
“那是一场崩溃，”穆雷说。
但他并没有沉沦太久。穆雷别无选择，只能保持坚韧；他不知道除此之外还有什么生存之道。他知道自己必须找到走出黑暗的方法，哪怕这意味着要亲手托起并拨开那片云。他的一生都在与不可能的逆境抗争，他自幼在西雅图一个治安混乱的街区长大，11岁时就被迫像成年人一样生活，前途未卜。每一个新的一天对他来说都像是一个奇迹。他总是觉得身处风暴中心、被雨淋透、张开双臂迎接挑战时最为自在。“我从5岁起就一直在克服障碍，”他说。
而现在，从笼罩他在新奥尔良的黑暗中走出来后——甚至曾有医学专家质疑他是否还能重返赛场——在经历了一年漫长的康复期（面对体育界最难缠的伤病之一）后，他终于准备好上场比赛了。
穆雷有望在周二复出，参加鹈鹕队对阵金州勇士队的比赛。
他期待着展示一个全新的、更经得起磨炼的自己。“就是要向世界展示，”穆雷说，“你可以经历生活中的任何障碍，并且能够走出困境，变得比以往任何时候都更好——比任何时候都强。”
29岁的穆雷开口说话时，他的决心显而易见。他充满了兴奋，也充满了可能性。“在我的未来，还有很多篮球比赛，很多精彩的比赛在等着我，”他说，“我太兴奋了。我有太多的目标想要去实现。”
他的队友们也能感受到他的乐观。“他是个非常有韧性的家伙，”蔡恩说，“伤病发生后不久，他的精气神就已经恢复了。他说，‘是的，我会比他们想象的、比人们预期的更早复出。我会回来并产生影响。’”
穆雷最终确实在预期的康复时间内回归了。
“他一点也没掉队，”蔡恩说道，“这一直都不令人意外，因为整个过程中，他都非常专注。”
穆雷并没有对他所遭遇的一切感到愤愤不平。远非如此。“这一切都是我会回头看并报以微笑的事情，”他说。他并不是在夸大其词；穆雷努力每天微笑着出现在康复中心——抱着在任何地方寻找快乐的心态。
“这是一场美丽的挣扎，”他说。这种挣扎促使他不断审视内心。当他讲述重返球场的旅程时，他发现自己不经意间回到了过去，谈论起自己的往事。在进入NBA之前，在还没有人知道他名字之前。他透露得越多，时间就越发模糊。这一分钟，他还在谈论在新奥尔良的跟腱伤势；下一分钟，他的思绪就飘回了西雅图。回到了他的童年和青少年时期。回到了那些他本不想再去回忆的部分。
“每一次我都会站起来，”德章泰·穆雷谈到他从跟腱断裂中恢复时说道，无论未来还会面临什么。(照片由 Klutch Sports 提供)
他是由祖母抚养长大的，身边充斥着枪支暴力、帮派和毒品。有时，他就睡在睡袋里躺在地上。他曾和错误的人群混在一起。11岁时，他因持械抢劫被捕。十几岁时，他在青少年拘留所服刑。他每天都会想起自己抛下的那些生活，经常打电话给仍在监狱里的家人和朋友。
他将自己的跟腱断裂视为交织在他生命底色中的又一根线：一种熟悉但痛苦的“克服困难”的模式。他也意识到，他正处于一段比重返NBA更深层次的旅程中。
“我正在试图找回自我，”穆雷说。
穆雷正接近一个人们常会用新视角审视生活的年龄。这会让人思考自己去过哪里，想去哪里，以及经历过什么。
“我正在痊愈，”穆雷说。不仅是身体上的伤病康复，还有在跟腱断裂前几个月所遭受的一切心理打击。以及在那之前的所有往事。这是一团乱麻。一个永无止境的处理过程。“你无法为这些事情设定时间表，”他说，“我不知道什么时候会突然觉得，‘哦，太好了！我现在痊愈了！’……我压抑了太多的东西。”
“我甚至从未能够真正过上正常人的生活。而人们永远不会理解这一点，你明白我的意思吗？从我七八岁开始，我卷入的、我身边发生的事情，没有任何一件是正常的。……所以，我仍然在尝试寻找自我。”
他停顿了一下，思考着他在这一年的疗愈过程中反复问自己的一个问题：
“德章泰到底是谁？”
穆雷说，在他2025年1月跟腱断裂后，一位医生曾对他能否重返NBA赛场表示怀疑。(Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)
他记得伤病发生的那一刻。2025年1月31日，在对阵波士顿凯尔特人队的比赛中，穆雷在弧顶持球，穿梭在多名防守者之间。他切入禁区，完成了一次失去重心的投篮。球没进，但他去争抢自己的进攻篮板时，跌跌撞撞地倒在了地板上。
他抓着自己的右脚，痛苦地畏缩着。但按照穆雷一贯的风格，他立即强迫自己站起来，而不是等待救援，并一瘸一拐地走向底线。
那是毁灭性的打击，但考虑到在新奥尔良之前发生的那些事，他不禁在想，这是否在某种程度上注定是要让他学会谦卑。“我看到了太多的美好，取得了太多的成功，”穆雷说，“这就像是在提醒我，我只是个凡人，不是机器，不是机器人，除了以此谋生之外，我和世界上任何普通人都没有区别。”
他试着提醒自己经历过更糟糕的事情来安慰自己。“我是那种肩负很多重担的人，”他说，“我独自承担，并克服它。”
这一直是他生活的节奏：忍耐，忍耐。生存，生存。但随着家人的相继离世，以及最后的这次受伤，他挣扎着想要理解这一切。作为一个有信仰的人，穆雷寻求清晰的答案。“我会问，‘该死。为什么这一切会接二连三地发生？’”穆雷说。
打篮球通常是他缓解任何痛苦的方式。但现在，他不再有这种慰藉可以依靠。没有保护靴和拐杖，他甚至无法行走。“我有过那种崩溃。很突然，也很单纯，尽管这听起来很疯狂，”他说，“但我是一个向前看的人。生活还在继续。你要么倒在地上不起，要么就站起来。”
“而每一次我都会站起来。”
跟腱伤势是康复难度最大的伤病之一，但穆雷根本没想这些。他很快投入到康复中，相信自己不仅会没事，还会变得更好。其他人则没那么确定。他说他曾遇到过陌生人用同情的目光看着他，盯着他的保护靴和拐杖。“这种破事只会激励我，”他说。
康复过程的艰辛同样激励着他。“刚开始的时候很艰难，”他说。伤前可以不假思索轻松完成的动作，现在却无法做到。手术两个月后，他意识到自己连一次单腿提踵都做不了。穆雷，这个曾经飞天遁地、能一步过掉防守人并隔人暴扣的球员，现在连一次提踵都无法完成。
他会再次尝试，支撑着身体，调动脚部和腿部的每一块肌肉，召唤身体踮起脚尖，但就是做不到。这让人丧气——但他不断尝试，失败，并拒绝放弃——尤其是在与一位医生交流之后。那位医生对穆雷无法完成提踵感到震惊。“他看着我就像世界末日到了一样，”穆雷回忆道，“好像在说，‘不，你打不了篮球了。’”
“那种氛围更像是，‘哦，不。一切可能都结束了。’”
指的是他的篮球生涯。那是穆雷拒绝接受的事情。在经历了西雅图的那一切才进入NBA之后，他绝不接受。当他听到医生的评价时，他的思绪正是回到了那里。这让穆雷想起了他曾无数次跨越过的消极情绪。“我不喜欢这种氛围，”他说，“我一生都在犯罪、暴力和负能量中长大。我更倾向于告诉我真相。我不在乎是好是坏……备选方案是什么？……我们要如何度过难关？计划是什么？”
随着穆雷继续努力康复，他依靠从之前的伤病中汲取的智慧。在2018-19赛季（他在联盟的第三个赛季，当时还在马刺队）的一场季前赛中，他曾遭遇右膝十字韧带撕裂。
所以这一次，记住那种感觉，他确保自己依然陪伴在队友身边。“他会参与群聊，”蔡恩说，“他会给队友发短信，打电话……在球队群组里发消息，比如，‘嘿伙计们，看了比赛……漂亮的胜利’，或者‘嘿，振作起来，抬起头。我们会渡过这个难关的。’他在整个康复过程中都非常活跃。”
蔡恩和其他队友都注意到了穆雷在康复中有多么刻苦。穆雷继续在提踵和其他曾经熟悉的动作上挥汗如雨，接纳自己当下的状态，而不是哀叹本该达到的目标。“每个人的身体都不同。可能有人能在两三个月后就做提踵。那是他，不是我，”他说，“我不需要向任何人证明什么。我从一个几乎不可能逃脱的环境里闯了出来。”
他站在这里，但他的心也回到了“那里”。回到了西雅图。对于一个在10岁前就目睹所爱之人一个个倒在子弹下的人来说，提踵算得了什么？对于一个在拿到驾照前就面临牢狱之灾的人来说，一位医生的意见又算得了什么？他内心承载着一系列的“差点”——差点没活下来。差点失去一切。“我日复一日背负的，”穆雷说，“是知道我必须证明自己是对的。”
在成长过程中，他培养出了一种“隧道视野”般的专注力，渴望不同的生活，每天督促自己成为最顶尖的篮球运动员。
这种心态引领他在2015-16赛季在华盛顿大学打了一年大学篮球，随后被马刺队选中。多年后，他也是以同样的心态面对跟腱康复。
他专注于自己能控制的事情，但这并不容易。对于许多近期遭受跟腱伤势的NBA球员来说，这从来都不容易，包括全明星队友杰森·塔图姆 (Jayson Tatum)、泰瑞斯·哈利伯顿 (Tyrese Haliburton) 和达米安·利拉德 (Damian Lillard)。康复的每一天都会触碰到一个人最脆弱的思绪。恐惧；伤病迫使你面对过去的自己。幽灵；你会怀疑自己是否还是以前那个球员。但更令人生畏的是想象未来的自己，一个尚未诞生的版本。他还会是同一个球员吗？还会像以前那样有爆发力吗？
但穆雷没有关注自己可能失去什么，而是专注于自己正在获得什么：更强大的心理素质，更坚韧的意志。
穆雷称应对生命中所失去的一切是“美丽的挣扎”。(照片由 Klutch Sports 提供)
他也继续排解自己的悲伤，悼念那些他失去的人。他的堂兄，其他家庭成员。还有朋友。他说，他选择从痛苦中寻找“美”，无论多么艰难，去怀念那些没有像他现在这样拥有机会的人。
“这就是那场美丽的挣扎，”穆雷说，“挣扎在于回头看并追忆我从哪里来，失去了多少人，以及今天谁没能在这里和我一起庆祝这些好事、伟大的事情和回忆。”
德章泰到底是谁？
“什么让德章泰真正快乐？什么让德章泰不快乐？”他说，“能有这样的思考过程真是太棒了，因为我来自一个你根本没有时间思考的环境。”
忍耐，忍耐。生存，生存。
那时候，还是孩子的他没有时间去思考幸福。也许正是这种把一切都压抑起来并在这个世界上最高水平舞台上表演的方式，帮助他走到了今天。但他意识到，也许他可以找到新的生活方式。在不处于“生存模式”的情况下获得成功。
随着几个月过去，他开始重返球场，他也思考了成功对他到底意味着什么。“成功就是：你今天醒过来了，”穆雷说，“你有机会去做一些伟大的事情——无论你做什么。”
“不一定要名利双收。它可以是走出你以前的环境。有一份稳定的工作。头顶有一片稳定的屋檐。确保你的孩子每天都能去上学，”穆雷说，“这里的一切，数百万美元和大豪宅，那不是真实的。那并不是现实的全部。我努力让自己明确主要目标……生活中真正重要的是什么。”
他知道，重要的事情远不止篮球——尽管他如此热爱这项运动，尽管他为重返鹈鹕队感到如此兴奋。但暂时失去篮球进一步加固了他的价值观并磨练了他的专注点：“成功是所有这些与NBA或篮球无关的小事，因为那并不能定义我。”
周二对阵金州勇士队走上球场时，看着看台上的所有人，那些为了看他和队友打球而付费的人，他想起了自己的使命。他的那些挣扎——看台上没有一个人能看到的挣扎。
“世界上很多关注职业运动员的人，他们认为我们不是凡人，”他说，“我们有钱，有成就……你打篮球、冰球、棒球，无论是什么，你就不被允许变得平凡。你不被允许像普通人一样。”
“但当我们结束这些职业生涯时，猜猜我们是谁？普通人，”他继续说道，“我们依然是人类。我们依然是你们。”
他露出了微笑。
德章泰到底是谁？
一个儿子。一个父亲。一个朋友。一个队友。一个篮球运动员。一个永不停歇的探索者。
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：'Who is Dejounte, really?' How a 'breakdown' led a former NBA All-Star to face himself
‘Who is Dejounte, really?’ How a ‘breakdown’ led a former NBA All-Star to face himself
Dejounte Murray felt heavy. And each passing day felt heavier than the last. “A dark cloud” hovered above him, he says. Refusing to dissipate, the cloud enveloped his thoughts, his emotions.
“Everything,” Murray says, “was just dark.”
It was June 2024. The Atlanta Hawks had just traded him to New Orleans.
There had been so much excitement in the air; hope for him to help turn around the Pelicans franchise by creating a formidable trio alongside Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram. Everything had been going well even before his change of scenery. Almost too well, he now surmises, looking back on this moment. Murray had been averaging a career high in points in Atlanta after receiving a hard-earned All-Star nod with San Antonio in 2022. From the outside, it seemed as if a new opportunity next to other young stars could lead him back to All-Star status in New Orleans.
But each time he left the Pelicans’ practice facility, finally alone with his thoughts, his reality, he felt a crushing pain. “A lot of people don’t know,” Murray says, “a lot of stuff in life went downhill.”
First, his mother had a stroke, a week before his first game of the 2024-25 season. He flew to see her in Seattle, where he grew up. She could barely speak, helpless in the hospital.
Then he broke his left hand in the first game, causing him to undergo surgery and miss 17 games.
Then his cousin was killed.
Then his uncle suffered an overdose.
And then, in January 2025, he suffered a season-ending ruptured right Achilles tendon.
“Enough was enough,” Murray says.
The sequence was beyond eerie — and unlike anything he had experienced before in what should have been a rosy point in his career. Since being drafted at the end of the first round by the Spurs in 2016, Murray steadily worked to improve his game, brimming with potential as a high-scoring threat. And when he was traded to Atlanta in June 2022, shortly after his All-Star breakthrough, he wanted to prove he could take on an even bigger role, forming a backcourt duo with franchise star Trae Young. His production remained high, but the team never took off.
Once he joined the Pelicans, navigating one devastating blow after the next in his personal life, the weight sometimes felt too heavy to bear. “It was literally the worst three months of my professional career on and off the floor,” Murray says. “I was never able to focus on basketball.”
He finally let himself feel the weight of it all — and unload his grief.
“It was a breakdown,” Murray says.
He didn’t stay down for long. Murray had no choice but to be resilient; he didn’t know how to operate any other way. He knew he had to find a way out of his darkness, even if that meant somehow reaching up and lifting the cloud himself. His entire life has been about beating improbable odds, since growing up in a tough neighborhood in Seattle, forced to operate like an adult at age 11, uncertain of his future. Each new day felt like a miracle. He’s always felt most comfortable in the middle of the storm, drenched, arms open. “I’ve been going through obstacles since I was like 5 years old,” he says.
And now, emerging from the darkness that surrounded him in New Orleans, where even a medical professional questioned his ability to bounce back at all, he is finally ready to play after a year-long rehab journey with one of the toughest injuries in sports.
Murray is probable to return Tuesday for the Pelicans’ game against the Golden State Warriors.
He’s looking forward to showing a new, even more battle-tested version of himself. “Being able to just show the world,” Murray says, “that you could go through any obstacle in life and you could come out on top, better than you ever did — ever.”
When Murray, 29, speaks, his determination is palpable. He’s overflowing with excitement. Possibility. “I have so much basketball, and great basketball, ahead of me,” he says. “I’m so excited. I have a lot that I want to do.”
His teammates can sense his optimism. “He’s such a resilient dude,” says Williamson, his two-time All-Star teammate and New Orleans’ franchise centerpiece. “Not too long after the injury happened, his energy was already up. He was like, ‘Yeah, I’m going to return sooner than they think, sooner than people think. I’m gonna come back and make an impact.’”
Murray is ending up returning right around the projected recovery time.
“He hasn’t missed a step,” Williamson says. “It isn’t surprising at all because the whole way, he’s been locked in.”
Murray isn’t bitter about what has happened to him. Far from it. “It’s all something I look back and smile about,” he says. He isn’t being hyperbolic; Murray tried to show up to rehab each day with a smile — with the mindset of finding joy anywhere he could.
“It’s a beautiful struggle,” he says. A struggle that caused him to continue to look inward. As he recounts his journey back to basketball, he finds himself unintentionally traveling back in time, talking about his past. Before the NBA, before anyone knew his name. The more he reveals, the more time begins to blur. One minute, he’s speaking about his Achilles injury in New Orleans; the next, his mind shifts back to Seattle. To his childhood, teenage years. To the parts that he tries not to think about.
“I’m gonna get up every single time,” Dejounte Murray says of his recovery from a ruptured Achilles — and whatever else may come. (Photo courtesy of Klutch Sports)
He was raised by his grandmother, surrounded by gun violence, gangs and drugs. Sometimes, he slept in a sleeping bag on the floor. He was caught up in the wrong crowds. When he was 11 years old, he was arrested for a robbery with a firearm. He served time in juvenile detention as a teen. He is reminded each day of what he left behind, often calling family members and friends still in prison.
He sees his Achilles injury as just one more thread woven into the larger fabric that is his life: a familiar but painful pattern of overcoming. And he realizes, too, that he is on a journey that is deeper than his comeback to the NBA.
“I’m trying to find myself,” Murray says.
Murray is nearing an age at which one often contemplates life through new lenses. It causes one to think about where one has been, where one wants to go; what one has been through.
“I am healing,” Murray says. Not just physically — from his injury — but from everything he had endured in the months leading up to the rupture. And everything before that. It is a lot to untangle. A perpetual processing. “You can’t put a timetable on these things,” he says. “I don’t know when I’m just going to be, ‘Oh, OK! I’m healed now!’ … I bottled up so much.
“I was never even able to really live a regular life. And people won’t never understand that, you know what I’m saying? Since I was 7, 8 years old, there was nothing regular about the things I was involved in, around or nothing. … So, I’m still trying to even find myself.”
He pauses, contemplating a question he has asked himself repeatedly over this past year of healing:
“Who is Dejounte, really?”
After Murray ruptured his Achilles in January 2025, one doctor expressed skepticism that he’d ever return to play NBA basketball, he said. (Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)
He remembers the moment the injury happened. On Jan. 31, 2025, in a game against the Boston Celtics, Murray dribbled the ball around the top of the key, weaving around several defenders. He drove to the lane, releasing an off-balance shot. He missed, but as he retrieved his own rebound, he stumbled and fell to the floor.
He grabbed his right foot, wincing in pain. But in true Murray fashion, he immediately forced himself up, rather than wait for assistance, and hobbled to the baseline.
It was devastating, but given how things had been going before his move to New Orleans, he couldn’t help but wonder if part of this was meant to somehow humble him. “I was seeing so much good and having so much success,” Murray says, “And it was just like, trying to remind me that I’m human, not a machine, not a robot, not different to any human in the world, besides what I do for a living.”
He tried to comfort himself by reminding himself that he has gone through much worse. “I’m somebody that carries a lot on my shoulders,” he says. “I carry it by myself. I get through it.”
That has always been the rhythm of his life: Endure. Endure. Survive. Survive. But with each family death, and finally with his injury, he struggled to comprehend it all. A person of faith, Murray searched for clarity. “I’m asking, like, ‘Damn. Why is all of this happening back-to-back?” Murray says.
Playing basketball was how he usually soothed any kind of pain. But now, he no longer had that comfort to rely on. He could no longer walk without his boot and crutches. “I had that breakdown. It was quick. It was simple, as crazy as that sounds,” he says. “But I’m somebody that moves forward. Life goes on. And you’re gonna either stay down on the ground, or you’re going to get up.
“And I’m gonna get up every single time.”
Achilles injuries are some of the most difficult to recover from, but Murray didn’t think about any of that. He soon got down to work, believing he would be more than OK. Others weren’t as certain. He says he’d encounter strangers who would look at him, full of pity, staring at his boot and crutches. “That type of s— motivates me,” he says.
So did the difficulty of rehab. “It was tough in the beginning,” he says. Movements he could easily do before the injury without thinking were no longer possible. It was about two months after his surgery when he realized he couldn’t do a single calf raise. Murray, a high-flyer who could explode past a defender, rise and dunk over someone, couldn’t do a single calf raise.
He’d try again, bracing himself, pulling with seemingly every muscle in his foot and his leg, to summon his body to raise onto his toes, but couldn’t do it. It was demoralizing — but he kept trying, failing, refusing to quit — especially after one interaction with one doctor. The doctor was stunned that Murray couldn’t complete the calf raise. “He looked at me like it was the end of the world,” he recalls. “Like, ‘Nah, you’re not playing basketball.’
“The energy was more, ‘Oh no. It could be over.’”
As in, his basketball career. That was something Murray refused to accept. Not after everything he had gone through in Seattle on his way to the NBA. And that’s exactly where his mind returned to when he heard the doctor’s comment. It reminded Murray of the pessimism he hopscotched over so many times. “The energy, I don’t like being around that,” he says. “I grew up around crime, violence and negativity my whole life. I’m more on the side of tell me the truth. I don’t care if it’s good or bad … What’s the alternative? … How are we gonna get through this? What’s the plan?”
As Murray continued working hard in rehab, he relied on wisdom he picked up from a previous injury, when he tore his right ACL in a preseason game before the 2018-19 season, his third season in the league, back when he was with the Spurs.
So this time, remembering how that felt, he made sure to still be there for his teammates. “He would be locked in on group messages,” Williamson says. “He’d be texting guys, calling guys … text our team group messages, like, ‘Hey guys, saw the game … good W’ or ‘Hey bounce back, keep your heads up. We’re going to get through this bump in the road.’ He was always active throughout the whole journey.”
Williamson and other teammates noticed how dedicated Murray was in his rehab. Murray kept laboring on his calf raises and other once-familiar movements, embracing where he was rather than lamenting where he had hoped he’d be. “Everybody’s bodies [are] different. There might have been a guy that could do [a calf raise] after two, three months. That’s him. That’s not me,” he says. “I have nothing to prove to nobody. I made it out of something that’s really, really almost damn near impossible.”
He is here, but he is there. Back in Seattle. What is a calf raise to someone who saw people he loved taken by bullets, one by one, before age 10? What is one doctor’s opinion to someone who faced jail time before receiving his driver’s license? He holds within him a carousel of almosts — almost didn’t make it. Almost lost everything. “What I carry day in and day out,” Murray says, “is knowing that I just got to prove me right.”
Growing up, he developed a tunnel-vision kind of focus, hoping for a different life, pushing himself each day to become the best basketball player he could.
That mentality led him to play a year of college basketball at the University of Washington in 2015-16 before being drafted by the Spurs. And it was the same mentality he used to approach his Achilles rehab all these years later.
He focused on what he could control, but it wasn’t easy. It never is, for the myriad NBA players who have recently suffered Achilles injuries, including fellow All-Stars Jayson Tatum, Tyrese Haliburton and Damian Lillard. Each day of recovery tugs at one’s most vulnerable thoughts. Fears; injuries force one to confront past versions of oneself. Ghosts; one wonders if he is still the same player. But what is more daunting is imagining a future version of oneself, a version that has yet to be born. Will he be the same player? Will he be as explosive?
But instead of focusing on what he might lose, Murray focused on what he was gaining: more mental toughness, more resilience.
Murray calls coping with the totality of what he’s lost in life “the beautiful struggle.” (Photo courtesy of Klutch Sports)
He continued to tend to his grief, too, honoring the memory of those he has lost. His cousin, other family members. Friends. He chooses to find “beauty,” he says, in his pain, no matter how difficult, remembering those who did not have the same opportunities as he does now.
“That’s the beautiful struggle,” Murray says. “The struggle was looking back and reminiscing about where I came from and how many people I lost and who’s not here to celebrate all these good things and great things and memories with me today.”
Who is Dejounte, really?
“What makes Dejounte really happy? What doesn’t make Dejounte happy?” he says. “It’s great to be able to even have that thought process, because I come from an environment where you don’t have time to think.”
Endure. Endure. Survive. Survive.
Back then, as a child, he had no time to contemplate happiness. And maybe that helped him get here — to the NBA — by bottling up everything and performing at the highest level in the world. But maybe, he is realizing, he can find new ways to operate. To succeed without living in survival mode.
As the months passed, and he began to return to the court, he also contemplated what success truly meant to him. “Success is: You woke up today,” Murray says. “You get a chance to go do something great — whatever you do.”
“It doesn’t have to be rich and famous. It could be making it out of your environment. Having a consistent job. Having a consistent roof over your head. Making sure your kids are going to school every day,” Murray says. “This right here, millions of dollars and mansions, that’s not real. That’s not reality, really. I try to keep myself knowing the main goal … what really matters in life.”
What matters, he knew, was so much more than basketball — as much as he loves the game; as excited as he is to return for the Pelicans. But temporarily losing hoops further reinforced his values and sharpened his focus: “Success is all these little things that has nothing to do with the NBA or basketball, because that doesn’t define me.”
As he takes the court Tuesday against Golden State, looking up at all of the people in the stands, people who paid just for a chance to see him and his teammates play, he is reminded of his purpose. His struggles — those that none of these people see.
“A lot of people in the world that watch these professional athletes, they think we’re just not human,” he says. “We got money, success … you play basketball, hockey, baseball, whatever it is, and you’re not allowed to be normal. You’re not allowed to be like us, the regular people.
“But when we’re done playing these professions, guess who we are? Regular people,” he continues. “We still are humans. We still are you.”
He lets out a smile.
Who is Dejounte, really?
A son. A father. A friend. A teammate. A basketball player. Someone who is perpetually searching.
By Mirin Fader, via The Athletic