Toronto Raptors: Why Collin Murray-Boyles is a SPECIAL Prospect

Toronto Raptors: Why Collin Murray-Boyles is a SPECIAL Prospect

Why don’t we get into the kind of like meat and potatoes? We got to talk about the guy, our bread and butter here, the the player that really everybody wants to talk about and that of course is Colin Murray Boils. Um the other Colin, Colin Castleton, Colin Murray Boils, right? Yeah. Yeah. They kept referencing Colin and it was like when you say something bad, it’s that Colin and then if there’s something good, it’s this Colin. He’s the good Colin. Absolutely. Okay. So, in terms of what I was expecting, so there’s a reason why he’s not on the stocks up is because I feel like he performed to my expectations, which is good. That’s not a a disc, by the way. That is not me slagging on him. That’s me saying I expected something from him and he pretty much delivered what I was expecting. How about you? Yeah. Um, he did basically exactly what I was um expecting. He he missed a couple threes badly. He hit a couple threes as I was expecting. Played phenomenal defense. Um he had a a nice big uh game where I he was either the leading scorer for us or the the second leading scorer for us. Um and he mostly was just all over the place. Disruptive. Um still a little bit of feel, a little bit of conditioning issues it looks like right now. But yeah, I mean pretty much as expected. Um really impressive in that one game and then as expected the other games. Yeah. Um, one of the things that I really like about him is that he is uh he’s kind of like a vet almost. Like he’s like a guy that you really kind of um just feel comfortable watching on the floor and he makes a lot of like as you said like really highlevel reads. He does a lot of stuff that is um something that you would expect from like a 10-year pro. So, uh, great passing, uh, solid and cerebral defense where he is making just like very solid decisions with the ball. Um, and on defense, the man is a very talented defender. So, um, his ability, he he has very long arms, very long wingspan. Um he has he’s not the greatest athlete, but he can move his feet laterally very well on the perimeter. He guards the basket. Uh the guy is just like a really talented defender. Um uh he can play on the outside, he can play on the inside. And um one of the things that uh sort of popped to me was that kind of what he’s doing without having elite athleticism. And I think that that is the one negative that I see from him as a player is that um and in the highlight it just shows him dunking the ball. But I think a lot of the time when he dunks and and makes those easy dunks, it’s due to the fact that he has like a really good wingspan. His wingspan, his arms are really long. He has a really high uh standing reach, so he can dunk it pretty easily. He’s just not like jumping out of the gym to do it. he’s kind of a little groundbound, which is, you know, like everybody can contribute in a a different way. So, it’s not like I’m just completely dissing the guy, but um that is one thing that I’ve got to mention. Yeah. And but one thing it doesn’t really affect is his ability to rebound because how strong he is and he’s got those long arms. So, I think as long as I mean, one of his greatest abilities is rebounding. So, he’s at least has enough vertical pop to get up and grab a rebound. So, I don’t see it um affecting him too much, but again, I do think there is a bit of conditioning he’s got to work on. I think he’s probably about 10 pounds too heavy. Uh at the draft, he was like 245, which is 5 lb heavier than OGN and Obi is right now at around the same height. So, that’s pretty crazy. That’s a big dude. Um so, I do think that he probably could use a bit of leaning down. Not that it’s going to make him that much of a higher jumper, but I will think that he get a little bit better athletically. um from leaning down a little bit. Yeah. And um one of the things like to contrast him let’s say with Mo and because as you said like similar in terms of role so let’s just put it that way like expectations are completely different. He’s much younger way better pedigree. All of that kind of stuff. But to contrast him, my biggest concern with Mobo was the the ball handling. And the ball handling out of Mobo was very shaky. Even in space, it seemed like he was having trouble handling the ball. And that is just complete opposite with uh Colin Murray Boils. The guy has a great great handle on the ball. And in those clips that I was showing, he had some just great dribble drives. Like he’ll get the ball, attack a close out, and he’ll handle the ball through traffic, through guys trying to strip him, and he has that nice low dribble. I that’s a really good thing to w see from a player his size. So, a lot of the time when you see players, uh, larger players handle the ball, they have that very high dribble where it’s easy to pick off. and he manages to get it nice and low and probably helped due to his long arms, right? He can it’s kind of like you can reach down, right? If you have those longer arms, he can get the ball closer to the ground. Much harder to strip that way. So, what do you think about his ball handling? Do you think that there’s something there that could really help him uh in the league? Definitely. And I think he’s confident with it, too. Um, you see a lot of players who are a bit clumsy with the dribble at first where they really don’t trust it and they’re not going to go try to cut through the lane like he is. He’s quite confident with it. There was a a clip that was going around of a couple of the guys, I don’t know if it was at combine, but it was a couple of the prospects um doing like weighted dribbling um with like a whatever it was like a 5B or an 8 pound ball. And out of I think it was him uh Yakonis Saraf and somebody else who was like a guard, he was the cleanest by far. I think his strength helps with that, but he he’s he’s got a handle. Um, and I think I’ve seen some terrible takes saying that he he’s not skilled, and that doesn’t make any sense to me. He’s got he’s got a handle. He’s excellent finishing package. Um, yeah. Yeah, he goes mostly left, but he can still finish right. Um, he’s Sorry to interrupt, but I I’ve got like this is you’ve touched on something that is my biggest bug bear. Like something that pisses me off. Yeah. Is that people when it comes to skill, what they look at is three point percentage. Yes, that is it. It is like it it’s it’s just people I I get it. I understand three-point shooting is an a really really important skill. It is not the only skill, okay? It is not the only skill. And you can be a very skilled player without having to shoot the ball. And guys, he has an 810 standing reach. If he doesn’t shoot the three in his first year very well, it’s not the end of the road for this guy. He’s not, you know, 61. Okay. It’s not as important, but you’re absolutely right that he has a lot of skill. Like the guy really does have a lot of skill. Yeah. And his his functional athleticism in terms of his balance and his body control is very impressive for a guy who’s got such a big body. I love I loved what I saw from him um when he did get a chance to get the ball. There were a couple times where he got a little looked off on the three because teammates weren’t exactly trusting him, which sure he’s he’s not shooting well, but I did and and I don’t know if these stats will will be more depressing than anything, but his uh his 22% three-point shooting um and I almost touched on this in the other segment, the guard shooting from the summer league roster was pretty abysmal. So Elijah Martin 35% from the floor, 23% from three. Chucky Hetburn 22% from the floor, 23% from three. And Jamal Shed 39% from the floor, 23.8% from three. So even Jacobe Walter was like uh not very good either. Um so so nobody shot it well. So he he shot almost damn near as good as our guards did, which is is kind of funny. And 57% from the field. And that’s that’s including the missed threes, you know, it’s all baked into the cake there. But um uh yeah, and the other things that he does like with the screening, I think that he and Jamal Shed ran the pick and roll very well. Um I think that it generated a lot of opportunities. He he does a lot of really advanced stuff with the dribble handoffs. Uh where there’s keeper plays where, you know, he he fakes the dribble handoff. He did a really good play where he faked a dribble handoff and then immediately, a lot of the time when players and bigs keep the ball on the dribble handoff, they try and drive it. He kept the ball, but instead of driving, he just immediately passed it to uh um Jame Battle who was wide open for three. That is like absolutely the correct play. That is like a super high level read. That was the exact right play there. But to touch on what you were saying in terms of like they didn’t trust him with the three-point shooting. I just don’t think that that he got enough opportunities. The guy only played 23 minutes a game. Obviously, a lot of that is like some of that is fouls. Some of that is other stuff. Some of that is like Mo was also playing minutes as well, but like the guy as opposed to other players who are like top 10 draft picks. This team was pretty stacked with players that are on the bubble and looking to to come in. Not a lot of guys that were there just as a flyer. A lot of these guys either were on the team last season in a backup role or are looking to make the team this season. So, I I get it why he didn’t play a ton of minutes, but I still wanted to see him get the ball a little bit more than he did. So, yeah, those are my thoughts on Colin Murray Boils. I almost said Colin Castleton, but Colin Murray Boils. Um, do you have anything else that you saw from him that you want to touch on or? Well, so like ideally, like I know I’ve spoken before about the bench having kind of a separate um identity to the starting lineup, but I was as I was watching Colin in the summer league, I was thinking a lot of the uh sets and like some of the fake handoffs and stuff that they run for Scotty to get Scotty going downhill, the exact same things can be run for for Colin, right? and he might even be a better finisher with a bit of a better handle. So, it’s very nice to be able to have certain plays that can also possibly transfer um to the bench and whether you have Jamal as the pick and roll ball handler in it, Jamal can still hit those passes. They could still be a two night a nice two-man game between them. But um yeah, I saw like it’s like, okay, they they could probably uh a lot of the ways that they try to get Scotty going, they could probably do the exact same thing for Colin and he might have more success sooner.

Steve and Julian break down what they saw from CMB during Summer League.