Dejounte Murray tears Achilles tendon as Pelicans’ injury-ravaged season goes from bad to worse

One of the most injury-plagued seasons in recent NBA memory continued for the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday night, and this one is the most significant as Dejounte Murray will miss the remainder of the season after suffering a torn right Achilles tendon against the Boston Celtics, the team announced Saturday.

Murray was pursuing his own miss when he went down late in the first quarter of Friday night’s 118-116 loss to Boston. 

Murray joins the small army of injured Pelicans this season. In late November, every available player the Pelicans had to put on the floor was on either a rookie or minimum deal. 

Currently, Zion Williamson — who has played in just 13 games — Brandon Ingram, Herb Jones, Daniel Theis and Jordan Hawkins are out, along with Murray, who also suffered a fractured hand on opening night. 

This has been a sunk season for the Pelicans for some time now, but this is just cruel at this point as Murray almost certainly will miss a decent chunk of next season, too, for what is typically at least a year-long recovery process.