The beef between Orlando Magic rookie Paolo Banchero and recently acquired Atlanta Hawks guard Dejounte Murray is one of the weirdest things to come out of the offseason. Banchero and Murray got chippy after meeting at a pro-am game where Murray gave Banchero a ‘Welcome to the NBA’ moment, but not on an NBA court.
Banchero wasn’t happy with the aggression that Murray showed in the pro-am game, which led to the pair bickering over Instagram, confusing most NBA fans. While this has added hype to the first matchup between the Hawks and Magic this season, it isn’t a rivalry many expect to be a massive talking point next season.
NBA legend Jamal Crawford is one of the many that believe so. While speaking to Landon Buford, Crawford honestly addressed the situation between Banchero and Murray by saying competitive basketball can cause situations like that and there is nothing to read into with the beef between the young NBA players.
Jamal Crawford on @DejounteMurray & @Pp_doesit’s back & forth last week:
“There’s no issues they’re brothers competitive basketball court stuff. I’ve had spats like that w my brothers. There’s nothing to read into,” says @JCrossover.#MagicTogether #TrueToAtlanta #NBATwitter pic.twitter.com/BpVoARpdmV
— Landon Buford (@LandonBuford) August 13, 2022
“No issues, they’re brothers. That was competitive basketball court stuff. I have had spats like that before with my brothers, you can never read into it. Obviously, people that don’t know us cannot tell it’s not a big thing but they’re brothers, they were competitive, that’s all it was.”
Banchero and Murray may just dap each other up in their first game of the season to end most of the speculation around the rivalry between them. Regardless, it will definitely flare up on the court and give us some heated moments between the pair due to their competitive natures.
Anyone who has played a game of pick-up basketball with friends knows that sometimes things can get very intense on the court. Best friends become rivals on the court, so the same intensity between NBA players has to be hard to contain. Murray and Banchero will have different goals next season, but when they meet on the court, all they’ll focus on is winning.
