Collin Murray-Boyles is here to break stuff

Notes on CMB:

Terror defensively. Can guard any player in the world on a switch + with the Raptors high line behind him. Overwhelming blitzing and pressuring the ball above the break. Active in rotation to attack passes, low pickups, tracks the ball really well. Biggest defensive weakness is his size for a center, obviously, but even then he still competes really well

When he gets to play off of size in the frontcourt as a power forward, the defense has been nuts. Like one of the better defensive lineups in the league, force a ton of misses, completely shut off the defensive glass, offense obviously struggles – but still very positive lineups

When he’s the lone center, marginal positive on offense, pretty positive defensively

Raptors were better with him on the floor in reg szn because his defense was a huge plus, the offense was a bit of an awkward fit for him, but it improved measurably once he got to play more traditionally as a dunker spot, screen and roll big – shot 76% at the rim on high volume, was one of the best finishers when it came to expected field goal % in the first round – was in a similar spot as Hartenstein / had a strong showing from floater range / showed a willingness to drive gaps, but wasn’t concerned with the 3pt line

From watching all his film + looking at the numbers, some pretty objective things show up – he is an immediate All-Defense level presence as a power forward, truly special, but doesn’t yet satisfy the skill that is typically asked of power forwards – skill is easier to acquire than height at this age, so that’s a clear path forward

You could argue that the Raptors should just sell out to get a stretch five, which is fair, but you also have to hope that Scottie & Collin should play thousands and thousands of minutes together, and that requires both of them amassing more skill to make that fit easier on offense

Shot stuff

• shot 34% from downtown on about 1 attempt per game
• 4/16 from corners, 13/34 from ATB
• 66% from the line
• was a strong middy shooter in college, performed well at the draft combine too
• Underperformed what I thought he would in short mid range during regular season

Handle stuff

• clearly needs to be more aggressive attacking bigs from above the break, even if not from a standstill as often, at least in keeper actions when his ball handlers are overplayed and the bigs are over leveraged
• a lot of this has the potential of just being dragged down by the fact that his hand was truly mangled last year
• when I talked to him in Detroit last year towards the end of the season, he said that most of what he was doing in his rookie season was trying to play a role and fit into what the Raptors were looking for, that might have played a part as well