Collin Murray-Boyles is NBA Draft’s analytics darling who wants to prove he can fix his shot

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Collin Murray-Boyles is a short big man who can’t shoot. He’s still one of the best prospects in the 2025 NBA Draft.

Joshua Staley knew he was getting a smart and skilled player when Collin Murray-Boyles showed up as a freshman at AC Flora High School in Columbia, South Carolina. Staley had coached Murray-Boyles’ older brother James to a state championship five years earlier, and always knew Collin to be a basketball obsessive. For Murray-Boyles to make varsity as a freshman, though, he was going to have to clean up an issue in his biomechanics.

“He didn’t have great hips as a youngster,” Staley told SB Nation. “I knew he needed to improve his mobility and his lateral movement and his speed. If you know anything about sports, you know your explosiveness comes from the hips.”

Before school even started, Murray-Boyles could be found on the track doing hurdles to help improve his hip mobility. His dad would drop him off early three or four days per week to work with Staley on increasing the range of motion, flexibility, and strength of his hips, while also trying to strengthen his glutes and his hands.

“We would work on it religiously,” Staley said, who eventually reserved a spot on varsity for his young forward. “He was willing to put the work in to be great.”

The seeds of Murray-Boyles’ work ethic have been sewn into the fabric of his character from an early age. As he enters the 2025 NBA Draft following a standout sophomore year at South Carolina, he’s still focusing on his areas for improvement rather than relying on what got him here.

Murray-Boyles was one of the most impactful college basketball players in the country this season. He was an elite defensive playmaker in the middle of the Gamecocks defense who always seemed a step ahead of the play. He was a bully-ball scorer as a face-up threat with a rare combination of power, quickness, and agility off the bounce. He routinely found cutters to the rim or open shooters at the arc as a smart passer with instant processing speed, and he would vacuum up rebounds on both ends of the floor. Despite being stuck on a team that finished dead last in the SEC, Murray-Boyles still ranked as a top-5 player in the country in BPM, a catch-all metric estimates a basketball player’s contribution to the team when he’s on the court.

Murray-Boyles has a case as the best defensive prospect in this year’s draft. His rebounding, passing, and ball handling are clear pluses from a skill perspective, and his length and strength are among the best in the class in terms of his physicality. He had fantastic all-around productivity at a young age against elite competition for two college seasons. But when pressed on what he wants to show NBA teams during the draft combine, Murray-Boyles went back to his biggest weakness.

“Shooting. Shooting is always gonna be at my number one to get better at it,” Murray-Boyles said at the combine. “Being more quick with my hands and low with my hips and just getting everything in tune to be a reliable shooter in the NBA level. It’ll always be shooting even if — or when I become a good shooter I’d say. It’ll always be my number one aspect to work on, and to grow my confidence over time.”

Murray-Boyles only made 26.5 percent of his threes on 34 total attempts from deep this season as a sophomore. Just being confident enough to shoot from behind the arc at all qualified as an improvement after he attempted only five threes in 28 games during an otherwise excellent freshman year. Being able to space the floor is a prerequisite for almost any NBA player these days, and it’s especially important for a player who is undersized for either front court spot in the league. Murray-Boyles measured at 6’6.5 without shoes with a nearly 7’1 wingspan and 239-pound frame. That’s small for an NBA power forward, let alone a center.

Some see Murray-Boyles as a short big man who can’t shoot. Others see him an analytic darling who packs the box score every game and elevates his team’s performance on both ends. He enters this draft determined to prove to teams that he will shoot it eventually while still impacting the game in so many areas until he gets there.

“I feel like my ability to adapt has been proven throughout all of high school and in college,” Murray-Boyles said. “So just the ability to adapt is is really going to push me to the next level in my basketball career.”

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It takes a leap of faith to buy an undersized big man who doesn’t shoot threes as an NBA lottery pick. For his part, Murray-Boyles has already been rewarding the belief of anyone willing to take a chance on him from early his journey.

Murray-Boyles entered his junior year at AC Flora without any D1 offers. Staley knew he was his best defensive player, and he quickly realized he needed to push the limits of his offense, too. The head coach evaluated his team at the start of the year and decided their best bet was to put the ball in Murray-Boyles’ hands and make him a point-forward.

“He made a lot of decisions for us,” Staley said. “We ran the offense through him. The most underrated thing about Collin’s game is that he’s a great passer.”

The decision paid off. AC Flora finished 24-7 and went on a magical run to the state championship game. Murray-Boyles was named the state’s 4A Player of the Year. Some low and mid-majors were starting to take notice. Wofford and Appalachian State offered. Belmont did, too, and he took an official visit there. Murray-Boyles geared up for the most important summer of his life, and hoped playing on the senior Adidas circuit with Upward Stars SE for the first time would boost his exposure. When he showed up to play at the opening even of the live recruiting period, he saw the new coaching staff of the D1 school in his own backyard sitting courtside.

South Carolina had just hired Lamont Paris as its new head coach weeks earlier. Paris immediately hired Tanner Bronson as an assistant, who served under him at Chattanooga in their previous stop. Bronson remembers seeing Murray-Boyles put on a show at the event, and recalled why he was willing to take a chance a player without a high-major offer.

“We loved his skill set, his feel, his touch, his ability to pick things up,” Bronson told SB Nation. “He was just heavy, and he wasn’t the athlete he is now. We thought, hey, if he got in better shape, he has a chance to be a real player.”

Murray-Boyles demeanor also stood out on the court in Bronson’s first impressions.

“Emotionally he’s really stable,” Bronson said. “He didn’t get rattled. Makes a bad play, didn’t bother him, makes a good play, didn’t get too excited. He always went on to the next thing.”

South Carolina extended a scholarship offer a few weeks later. Murray-Boyles never got another major program to offer him, and he didn’t need it. He committed to the Gamecocks at the end of the summer, and then readied to move out to Utah for his senior year at Wasatch Academy.

Murray-Boyles had already decided to transfer out west for his final year of high school before the summer. The move allowed him to play a national schedule in the National Interscholastic Basketball Conference, which features some of the top high school programs in the country such as Oak Hill, IMG Academy, Montverde Prep, and Sunrise Christian.

Staley said Murray-Boyles wanted to be put in an uncomfortable situation far from home to see how he would respond. He matched up against the best players in the country, from Cooper Flagg and Derik Queen one night to Matas Buzelis the next. Through it all, Murray-Boyles consistently rose to the occasion. He averaged 15 points, 8.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1.8 blocks and 1.0 steals per game. He finished third in the NIBC in scoring, and led the conference in rebounding. Scouts took notice, and kept moving him up the recruiting rankings. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the 2023 RSCI, and there’s CMB at No. 98 overall, a massive improvement from where he was ranked a year earlier.

Bronson was even more impressed by his physical transformation. He saw his prized recruit get stronger, leaner, and more explosive after a year of focusing on his body. Murray-Boyles was down 25 pounds from his playing weight back in Columbia, and it was taking his game to the next level.

“By the time we got him, he was a year ahead of what we thought he would end up being.” Bronson said. “As a freshman, he was ready to go.”

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Back in his hometown, Murray-Boyles hit the ground running in early practices as he enrolled at South Carolina. He was poised to grab a starting spot as a true freshman until he suffered his first setback: a nasty case of mono that kept him out for more than a month, and caused him to miss the first six games of the season. The virus affected his conditioning, and even when he returned he was mostly in a small role off the bench.

“It was a pretty intense situation,” Bronson recalls. “He actually lost a lot of weight, he wasn’t allowed to do anything, so it took longer to get him back to normal as we had to kind of ease him back into it. But there was no surprise in what he was able to do once he got on the court, because he had been doing it all summer before he got sick.”

Murray-Boyles finally cracked 20 minutes in a game in a Jan. 9 loss to Alabama. He took off from there, putting together an SEC All-Freshman campaign while helping lead the Gamecocks to a 26-8 overall record and a No. 5 seed in the NCAA tournament.

For a player who was compromised the first half of the season, Murray-Boyles sure did close well. He led the team in blocks, steals, rebounds, and true shooting percentage (among qualified players). He did it with impressive usage (22.3 usage rate) despite essentially only playing against difficult SEC competition while missing most of the non-conference slate with the virus. He was one of only two freshmen in DI to post a BPM over 10, and he was a full year younger than the other one, Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard, who eventually became the No. 3 overall pick in the 2024 draft.

Murray-Boyles was starting to get some draft hype, but he put that speculation to rest before he even entered the NCAA tournament. He declared he would return for his sophomore year during the SEC tournament, marking himself as one of the top returners in the country.

“I think a lot of the the success he had this season might have come in that first year if he didn’t get sick.” Bronson said.

South Carolina lost its top three players in minutes played entering the 2024-25 season. Those also happened to the Gamecocks’ three best shooters. With the SEC looking stronger than ever, South Carolina was expected to take a step back. They were picked to finish No. 11 in the conference in the preseason media poll.

The Gamecocks’ season-opening loss to North Florida confirmed their worst fears: this team would be playing in a shoebox all season with no shooting and poor guard play. It only got worse from there, with South Carolina opening conference play with 13 straight losses. The SEC sent 14 teams to the NCAA tournament, shattering the previous record of 11 set by the old Big East in 2011. South Carolina finished in the cellar, at just 2-16 in league play.

Despite being caught in such a rough team context, Murray-Boyles consistently put up incredible two-way production against some of the best teams in the country.

Murray-Boyles was the only power conference player in the country to finish the year with 60+ percent true shooting, a 20+ percent assist rate, a 20+ percent defensive rebound rate, and a four percent block rate. He was an incredibly efficient scorer by leading the SEC in effective field goal percentage. He also captained a defensive unit that still finished top-50 in the country.

Murray-Boyles’ on/off impact was astounding. South Carolina’s offense and defense were +8.2 points better per 100 possessions with him on the floor vs. the bench. The offense drew significantly more looks at the rim when their sophomore star was on the floor through both his scoring and his passing, and the defense forced more turnovers, fouled less, and deterred rim attempts at a much greater level when he was in the game. Via databallr:

Great defense is harder to evaluate than great offense, but Murray-Boyles has just about the best defensive tape and best defensive metrics in this class. He also fully believes he can be elite on that end.

“I want to be Defensive Player of the Year to be honest,” Murray-Boyles said at the combine. “I feel like I have the tools to achieve that. Obviously there’s more to my game than just straight defense, but it’s a big part of who I am. Defense and competitiveness all the time. I just want to win, and defense is a part of winning. I feel like I attack that at a high level.”

Murray-Boyles is at his best as an off-ball defender. His defensive awareness is off the charts, and here’s a possession that proves it against the eventual national champion Florida Gators. Murray-Boyles traps the initial pick-and-roll to get the ball out of star guard Walter Clayton Jr.’s hands. He’s still able to recover to his man (center Rueben Chinyelu) before Florida can get him the ball down low. Florida gets into a secondary action with Thomas Haugh slipping a screen and rolling to the basket. Murray-Boyles picks him up on time, and then forces a strip and a turnover when he puts the ball on the floor.

On this possession during crunch-time, Murray-Boyles traps the ball handler, recovers to the roller before the entry pass can come, then rotates to protect the rim and help force a stop.

Bronson watched Murray-Boyles defend up close for two years, and shared the traits that help him stand out.

“I think he genuinely can guard any position relatively effective because he moves his body extremely well, he’s very strong, and he has mass,” Bronson said. “He can protect the rim. As a guy guarding the ball, he just has the ability to move his body and change directions really, really well for being, you know, a guy with a significant amount of mass.”

Murray-Boyles is a weapon guarding the pick-and-roll. He was a monster this season on blitzes and traps, using his long arms and quick hands to smother smaller ball handlers. He can get up to the level of the screen and still have the quickness to corral the opposing guard. He can expertly position himself between a driver and roller to cut off the water to both options, and he can wall up at the rim with his length and his low center of gravity. Murray-Boyles held opponents to 38.3 percent shooting and a 46.2 percent effective field percentage this year, both excellent numbers. Opponents shot only 44 percent against him at the rim, and only 33.3 percent on jumpers, per Synergy Sports.

His ability to force turnovers with pristine hand-eye coordination is second-to-none in this class. If the ball is exposed around Murray-Boyles, he’s going to get it. Try to find a prospect in this class with better hands than CMB. You’ll be looking a long time. Here’s some of the best example of Murray-Boyles just ripping the ball away from the offense this season.

“He anticipates at an extremely high,” Bronson said. “He sees things happen before they happen. The part that I think gets overlooked a lot is he values it. He loves to defend. He really believes that you can shut somebody down or shut the team down.”

Murray-Boyles was back in a point-forward role offensively for South Carolina this season. While he’s likely more of a connective piece at the next level, the reps and usage of making decisions with the ball can only help his development.

The biggest area of growth for CMB as a sophomore was his ball handling. He was comfortable and confident dragging opposing bigs out to the perimeter, and attacking them off the bounce as a driver. Murray-Boyles has a little bit of shiftiness and real power getting downhill, especially when an advantage is created for him. He can bump smaller defenders off their spot on the way to the rim, and he can use his strength to finish through contact. He will also drive directly around slower-footed traditional bigs even if he’s a bit left-hand dominant. Per Matt Powers, CMB scored 0.92 points per drive this season, which crushes other players in his archetype.

Murray-Boyles is also great at establishing deep post position, sealing a smaller player, and getting an easy interior basket. He isn’t the greatest leaper, but he has enough juice to hammer a dunk as a downhill roller when he gets a runway. He also showed nice touch on finesse finishes around the rim. He made 69.7 percent of his rim attempts this year, per BartTorvik, with more than 47 percent of those being self-created looks. Here’s a compilation of CMB’s scoring power:

Murray-Boyles’ best offensive trait is his passing. He’s excellent operating in dribble-handoffs and hitting cutters with passes. He showed some ability to throw live-dribble passes out of drives this year, and there were even some flashes of manipulating windows open with his eyes to create a window for teammates. His assist numbers would look a lot better if South Carolina wasn’t one of the worst shooting teams in the country, making only 31.6 percent of their threes on the season, which ranked No. 285 in DI.

If he plays with another big man, Murray-Boyles is skilled at throwing a high-low feed inside. His short-roll playmaking felt a little underutilized in college, but represents a major area of value in the NBA. As defenses want to blitz to take the ball out of a star guard’s hands, Murray-Boyles is a skilled release valve who can manufacture a good look in a four-on-three situation with his passing skill and the threat of his downhill scoring. Here are some of CMB’s most impressive passes this season.

Murray-Boyles’ game is so well-rounded in so many areas, but there are always going to be skeptics as long as his jump shot remains a work in progress. To this point in his development, Murray-Boyles has always been at the center of the action as a decision-maker. In the NBA, he’ll likely have to be more of a floor spacer, and at least make teams respect his outside shot so he can tap into everything that makes him so effective.

“His shot’s not broken,” Bronson said. “I think there are some players where it’s like, yeah, he’s just never gonna be able to shoot. I don’t think Collin is that guy. He’s got to find his rhythm a little bit, and he has to rep it out where he feels really confident in it.”

Here are some of the few shots Murray-Boyles did knock down from the outside this year.

For his part, Murray-Boyles is singularly focused on building out his shot during this summer.

“Just getting shots up is the biggest thing for me,” Murray-Boyles said at the combine. “Building small functional habits like flicking my wrists, holding my follow through just everything to lead up to having a good form is what I’ve been doing. I’m trying to rep it out consistently even when I’m tired to keep the same form.”

NBA front-offices can tell themselves that big men often take longer to develop as shooters. They can try to pair him with a stretch five who might be a little shaky on defense knowing Murray-Boyles has a special skill for protecting the paint. They can play him at the five next a bouncier four who can add some supplemental rim protection and stretch the floor as a shooter. They can also bank on Murray-Boyles doing what he’s done his entire career, tirelessly working to address the biggest shortcomings in his game, and doing whatever his team needs.

When Murray-Boyles watches film, two players without a reliable jump shot draw him in the most: Julius Randle for his bully-ball driving on offense, and Draymond Green for his defensive superpowers despite being a short big man.

“I just take a lot of things from successful players,” Murray-Boyles said at the come. “Julius Randle’s aggressiveness, Draymond’s defense, a lot of these young defenders, how they use their hands. I just take a lot of things from other’s games. Jokic’s connectivity and how they pass the ball and how they draw out defense, just small things like that to build upon my game and to be the best that I can be.”

It’s easy to focus on what Murray-Boyles can’t do, but it comes at the risk of overlooking everything he already does so well. Throughout every stop of his career, he has always filled the gap his team needed the most. As he transitions to the NBA, it would be foolish to doubt his ability to do it again.