Ranking Dejounte Murray trade destinations: Who needs him the most?

2. The Nets desperately need a point guard like Dejounte Murray

The Brooklyn Nets are a team lacking any sort of direction. They've played awful basketball of late, losing eight of their last ten to fall to 16-23 on the season. A team that bad might consider rebuilding or retooling like the Hawks, but the Nets don't have that luxury thanks to the James Harden trade they made years back. They don't control their first-round pick until 2028.

With Brooklyn having no interest in selling, they should be conservative buyers. They should not be trading valuable future Suns or Mavericks picks, but they should look into trading a pick like the Suns 2025 first-rounder they got from the Kevin Durant trade.

The Nets' biggest hole right now is the point guard position. Ben Simmons is out once again, Dennis Smith Jr. isn't much of a distributor, and Spencer Dinwiddie has struggled for much of the season. Dinwiddie is also a free agent at the end of the year, and Brooklyn doesn't have a realistic way of getting a point guard close to Murray's caliber without a monster trade. Adding a player like Murray who can run the offense and take a bit of the load off of Mikal Bridges can help Bridges continue to blossom and add a bit of structure to an offense that lacks it in Brooklyn.

It's not a move that will get Nets fans dreaming about a championship, but it's one that makes them more watchable until they can finally control their picks again. They should be a playoff team if they add Murray. That's better than a lottery team with no picks. This is about fit, and the fit makes a lot of sense.