Forward outlook with our current roster:

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It seems like the most obvious and simple move would be to trade/ buy out Temple and roll with our 15 man roster.

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according to spotrac, LINK pels currently have 7.8MM in tax room.
buying out temple's 5MM obviously doesnt change that, and adding player(s) to take his place shouldnt affect 2022-23 tax status (as long as the adds are less than 7MM)

BUT...for the next season, with 11 players under contract, they would be 30MM+ short of the tax, without zion's extension (or hayes). i think we can safely assume that in 2023-24, the pelicans will be a tax team (and they should be). the pels need to be careful about adding guaranteed salary for 2023 until they know, one way or another, whats going to happen with hayes.

TLDR: they need to get creative to roster liddell, maybe waiving temple is the answer (or dumping him to a space team with a pick). but multiple player moves likely wouldnt be until february when they have more clarity

Temple and Graham are in flux because both are unguaranteed next year, either fully or in part.

Dumping Temple today costs us $5m in salary this season and $0 in the future regardless of how it is done.

Worst comes to worst, send cash with him to a new team for a top 55 protected 2nd to keep some cushion to stay out of the tax.

Graham? $11m today, about $3-4m next season. He is useful as trade ballast now if, say, we send him and Jax out for someone.

I don’t look closely at contracts, but how does Murphy have a player option already in just his second year being a first round pick?

He doesn’t. He has a 2 year team option coming up for years 3 and 4 of his deal.