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San Antonio Spurs rising star Dejounte Murray enjoying fatherhood to the fullest
By Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer
When Dejounte Murray's daughter was born, he faded away from this world for a moment.
The emotions were so intense. The room started spinning. His world tilted on its axis, sending a shockwave so big that it knocked the San Antonio Spurs' point guard off his feet.
"I fainted when she was born," the 24-year-old Murray told FOX Sports. "She came out, and everything went black. I've never had that moment in my life. I've never had a moment where everything went black. And I've been through a lot."
Murray collapsed. He was unconscious for 10 seconds. He doesn't remember who caught him. It could've been a doctor. Or a nurse. It's all a blur.
But amid the chaos, there was a moment of complete clarity.
"That's my baby," he thought. "It's love. It's really love. If I go broke today, tomorrow, the love isn't going to change."
At first, Murray didn't want to have children.
His childhood had been too painful. Too rough. It's still hard for him to talk about it. He was born into poverty and instability in a crime-riddled neighborhood in Seattle.
At a time when most children were learning about letters and colors, Murray was exposed to darkness.
"By the age of 5 years old, I knew what drugs was," Murray said. "I knew my mom was in prison. They couldn't tell me she was on vacation. I knew my dad was doing drugs."
Child Protective Services tried to intervene multiple times to send him to a more stable home. He didn't know when he'd eat. He bounced around different apartments and hotels. At any given time, he'd have to share a room with his cousins, uncles, aunts and sister.
Members of his family were deeply entrenched in gangs and crime. From a young age, he was able to recognize drug addicts and drug dealers. The things he saw still haunt him.
"It was nothing that a kid should ever have to be around or witness, just from the struggles to everything else," he said. "It was hard for me. I think my whole family, starting with my uncles and stuff, can agree the day that I was born, my life was rough."
Murray fell victim to his surroundings. As an adolescent, he learned that if he needed something, such as a new pair of shoes, no one was going to buy them for him. He had to provide for himself, by any means necessary.
Between the ages of 11 and 15, Murray had three or four stints at Juvenile Detention Centers, he said.
There was no escape. Even as a freshman at Rainier Beach High School, when he'd look out of his classroom window, he felt overwhelmed.
"You could see actual crime going on, somebody getting robbed or an actual shooting happening," he said.
Ambulance sirens blared constantly, competing with his teachers’ voices.
Eventually, things reached a crescendo. It was obvious that something needed to change, or it was going to be too late. Everyone in Murray’s life came to an agreement: He would move in with his uncle and be home-schooled for the rest of high school.
That sent him on a different path.
Instead of being surrounded by family members breaking the law, he watched his uncle go to work every day. It inspired him to want to be a better person. He stopped smoking marijuana, a vice he had picked up when he was 11. To this day, he won't touch drugs or alcohol.
"Sixteen years old is when I started doing the right thing," Murray said. "I haven't looked back since."
That's around the same time he began to believe he could create a different life for himself.
Murray was always a supremely talented basketball player, but hardly anyone made it out of where he came from. He was a realist and refused to delude himself with false hope.
But that all changed when Jamal Crawford, a three-time Sixth Man of the Year, invited the 16-year-old to participate in his Midnight Madness exhibition.
Murray had 40 points against a bunch of NBA players, including Chris Paul, Matt Barnes and LaMarcus Aldridge, stunning himself and everyone around him.
"'Give me two, three years, I'll be stronger, I'll be better, I can play with them, especially me hanging with them right now,'" Murray thought at the time. "That was when I knew I could be an NBA player."
Murray grew into a star at Rainier Beach High, where he went to practices and games and then immediately left campus to avoid getting caught up in any trouble. He had a reputation of being a no-nonsense type of kid, but his babyface and generosity told a different story.
"If he had $5 in his pocket, he'd spend $4 of it on his teammates," said Mike Bethea, the boys' basketball coach at the time. "That's just the type of kid he was. 'Coach, I got $10, I'll buy somebody a meal.' He was always looking out for others. That's just a special quality that not many people have."
On the court, Murray was crafty and explosive. There was a smoothness and intensity about his game on both offense and defense. He led the Vikings to three Class 3A state championships, averaging 23 points and 13.8 rebounds his senior year, including a jaw-dropping, 52-point, 20-rebound performance in the team's home opener.
When the head coach at the University of Washington, Lorenzo Romar, began to recruit Murray, he was well aware of the player's checkered past. Romar told Murray he needed to improve his grades. The teenager promised he would and then immediately delivered. He was willing to do anything to succeed.
Murray left an impression on Romar. He shook his hand. He made eye contact. "I've just from day one always trusted him," Romar said.
Murray went on to play for the Huskies for one season in 2015-16, and he shined both on and off the court, finally surrounded by peers who wanted to succeed. Murray and Romar weren't together long, but many things stuck out to the coach during that time.
His quickness. His incredible ability to rebound. His defensive savvy. But above all else, one thing left the biggest impression: Murray would always ask him how he was doing.
"Most kids don't ask you that," Romar said. "He would always ask that."
After Murray declared for the 2016 NBA Draft, the Spurs reached out to Romar to learn more about his character.
"I just told them, 'Wait until you talk to him,'" Romar recalled. "He will blow you away with the kind of kid that he is."
San Antonio went on to select Murray as the 29th overall pick, transforming his life forever.
By all accounts, Murray had made it. For the first time in his life, he had money. So much money. He was the ultimate success story.
But he was still haunted by the ghosts of his past. His upbringing has left gaping wounds, and it wasn't until his daughter, Riley, was born that they began to scar over.
After Riley entered this world at a hospital in Seattle on July 14, 2017, Murray immediately felt something change inside of him. The anger softened. The hurt quieted down. The love he felt for her smoothed his rough edges like waves pounding against jagged rocks, turning them into soft sand.
"I can't sit here and lie to you. If I didn't have my daughter, I probably would be out of the league," Murray said. "I really believe that. I wouldn't be an NBA player. I'd have an X beside my name because I'd be feeding into all the bulls---."
Murray fears that if it weren't for Riley, who was born after his first season with the Spurs, he would've gotten in his own way. He somehow would've messed things up for himself.
Ever since she came along, though, he feels a deep responsibility to be the best man he can be. Whenever he's having an off day, she's his motivation. She's the reason he desperately wants to succeed, on and off the court.
"I really feel like if I didn't have her, I would have nobody to live for," Murray said. "I would have nobody to do the right thing for. So my daughter coming into this world, it saved me. A lot of people say that type of stuff. But I mean that."
There are still remnants of his past that he hasn't been able to shake, that he doesn't want to shake. He's slow to trust people and is always, always aware of his surroundings.
But a lot of other stuff has faded away.
He used to react if someone looked at him the wrong way. He used to dwell on past hurts. He used to hold grudges against people who wronged him.
"She changed that," Murray said. "Having my daughter, it keeps me away from all of it, and it helps me grow as a man. It's like, you're going to grow as a man and do the right thing, or you're going to hurt yourself and, more importantly, hurt your child."
Murray broke the cycle.
After agreeing to a four-year, $64 million contract extension with the Spurs in October 2019, he knows Riley will never want for anything in her life. She'll never see the violence and despair he saw.
But above all else, she'll never feel the lack of love that he felt.
When Riley is with him (she goes back and forth between San Antonio and Seattle, where her mother lives), they spend their days swimming, laughing, dancing and playing with her toys.
Riley has been with Murray ever since the Spurs were eliminated by the Grizzlies in the Play-In Tournament last month. The other day, she proudly told him that boys are supposed to open the door for girls after seeing her father do that for her so many times.
"She's smart. She's above average. She's goofy. She's really, really funny," Murray said, beaming. "[So much] personality for a 3-year-old about to be 4-year-old."
Sometimes, Murray can't help but think of how differently things could've turned out. He still receives phone calls every day from family members or friends alerting him that something terrible has happened to somebody he knows.
The same fate could've easily befallen him.
"If I would've never made it out, I'd probably be dead, or I'd probably be in jail, or I'd be, I don't know, out doing things that would probably jeopardize my life to get money or protect myself," he said.
Instead, Murray is preparing for his sixth season with the Spurs. With the way he has improved each season, there's a good chance he’ll develop into an All-Star. This past season, the 6-foot-4 Murray averaged 15.7 points, 7.1 rebounds and 5.4 assists.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich says Murray welcomes criticism. He truly wants to be great. "He'll say, 'Stay on me. I want to get better,'" Popovich told reporters in February. "He's one of those guys."
Murray considers himself blessed.
Basketball allowed him to escape his old life. But love allowed him to embrace his new one.
Often, he's overcome by the same emotions that he felt in that hospital three years ago.
"That's the feeling I get every time I see her," Murray said of Riley.
But instead of fainting, he has learned to embrace that love.
He now smiles, picks up his daughter and holds her tight.
Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She has previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.
