{"id":208564,"date":"2025-10-12T19:57:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T19:57:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/208564\/"},"modified":"2025-10-12T19:57:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-12T19:57:07","slug":"kings-keegan-murray-out-for-start-of-season-with-ucl-tear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/208564\/","title":{"rendered":"Kings’ Keegan Murray out for start of season with UCL tear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sacramento Kings<\/a> forward Keegan Murray<\/a> suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb during a preseason loss in Portland on Friday night, the team announced.<\/p>\n

Murray will undergo surgery and be reevaluated in four to six weeks, ruling the Kings’ young power forward out for at least the first 10 games of the regular season.<\/p>\n

The injury comes at a pivotal time in Murray’s career. Entering his fourth season, he is eligible for a contract extension in the next week. The deadline to come to an agreement with the Kings is Oct. 20. If they can’t, Murray will enter restricted free agency next summer.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

Murray has been a pillar of durability early in his NBA career, appearing in 233 of a possible 246 games his first three seasons, starting all but two of them. This UCL tear is the most significant injury he has suffered as a pro.<\/p>\n

Murray was the projected starting power forward for a Kings team attempting to compete for a playoff spot in the Western Conference. He has made 543 career 3s and developed into a versatile defender on the wing, meaning the Kings will be without a crucial floor spacer and their most trusted stopper in the opening month.<\/p>\n

Veteran forward Dario Saric<\/a>, veteran guard Malik Monk<\/a>, fourth-year guard Keon Ellis<\/a> and rookie Nique Clifford<\/a> are among the candidates who could start in Murray’s place. Dennis Schroder<\/a>, Zach LaVine<\/a>, DeMar DeRozan<\/a> and Domantas Sabonis<\/a> are the four other expected starters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sacramento Kings forward Keegan Murray suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb during a preseason…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":208565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-208564","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}