The fallout from an NBA Draft largely leads into Summer League in Vegas, where the newcomers get their first taste of NBA action. Meanwhile, front office executives and scouts can use it as a starting point to gauge what to expect from their prospects.
And speaking of the insights from those high-ranking officials, ESPN draft analyst and NBA writer Jeremy Woo conducted an anonymous poll following the conclusion of Summer League, where he gathered intel on some of the biggest questions regarding the draft class.
Particularly, Woo proposed questions about who might win Rookie of the Year, which pick (other than Cooper Flagg) will prove to be the best, which youngster will turn out to be the biggest steal, and which draftee will eventually be revealed as the biggest reach. There was also a question asking who the top 2026 prospect would be, but for the sake of this piece, we'll just focus on the areas where our subject is of concern.
Toronto's ninth overall pick from the 2025 NBA Draft, Collin Murray-Boyles, would find his name mentioned a couple of times in Woo's insider poll, and it truly paints a picture of how polarizing of a prospect CMB is in the broader NBA landscape.
Is Collin Murray-Boyles going to be a hidden gem or a disappointment?
Prior to the draft and even immediately afterward, I expressed my concerns about Murray-Boyles' fit with the Raptors, given that he was a non-shooting forward added to a core that already struggles with that weakness. His draft combine showing didn't really impress me, and going into the big night, I was fully on board with the Carter Bryant train (I'll get to him in a minute).
The poll would reveal that Murray-Boyles received votes in completely opposite categories — being viewed by one exec or scout as the draft's biggest steal, while also being considered by another as the biggest reach of the draft. Now, to be fair, we might have to take this poll with a grain of salt, because it could easily be the Raptors' own front office staff praising their rookie. Still, I think it's worth noting the narrative nonetheless. Yang Hansen, the polarizing Chinese big man whom Portland took a major swing on, is also another guy who finds himself on two sides of the spectrum.
Going back to Carter Bryant, he was seen as the consensus 2025 NBA Draft steal among the polled members (with five votes), and it's certainly for good reason — CB definitely looks like he'll fit into the role of a winning, prototypical NBA 3-and-D wing quite nicely.
I think the perception around Murray-Boyles is just inevitable in a way. He's not particularly flashy or exciting for a casual watcher, so it's easy for his talents and strengths to be overlooked. His Summer League campaign wasn't excellent, but he definitely showed flashes of the elite defender he was praised as going into the draft process. I still have my doubts about Murray-Boyles' ceiling, but he definitely built a strong case to earn minutes right away, simply based on his defense.
You can't please 'em all in this league, and I'm sure narratives circulating like this will only fuel Collin Murray-Boyles' hunger to flip the script on his general perception ... and for Toronto, maybe that'll prove to be a good thing.