Raise And Shine

Once considered a likely lottery pick, DEJOUNTE MURRAY slipped to 29th in the 2016 draft and spent a good amount of his rookie yearplaying in the G League. But this season it’s become clear that theSpurs want him to be their PG of the future—and he’s ready for the challenge.

- Alex Squadron

DEJOUNTE MURRAY has only one hobby. The way he sees things, there’s simply no time for anything else.

“I really just watch basketball, sleep basketball, wake up and go do basketball,” he tells us. It’s a lifestyle driven by a piece of advice a 19-year-old Murray received as he made the transition to the NBA a couple years ago.

“Don’t settle for anything but greatness,” he was told.

That message may sound like a cliché, but it carries a lot of weight when you hear it directly from LeBron James.

THE SPURS CHOSE Murray with the 29th pick of the 2016 NBA Draft. Twenty months later, he’s the starting point guard for the San Antonio Spurs, taking over for the legendary Tony Parker, who held the starting position when healthy from November 6, 2001 until January 21, 2018.

It’s been an “all-in” mentality that has sparked Murray’s success to date.

“To reach greatness you’ve got to be all in,” he says. “You got to really love the game. You got to study it. You got to work on your game every single day.”

That means no distractions. No showing up late. No partying. And if you’re as obsessive as Murray, few other hobbies.

Coming from the perilous south side of Seattle, WA, Murray is extra wary not to let anything stand in the way of his ambitions.

“Where I come from, I just feel like you get one chance at it,” he says. “Me being a young African-American, one mess up can cause everything to go downhill. I feel like in the NBA, you got to be all in. You can’t be 50 percent in and 50 percent out.”

Murray first picked up a basketball at the age of 4 and immediately fell in love. As his passion for the game grew, he began to closely follow the career of a young phenom out of Akron, OH, dubbed “The Chosen One.”