One of the memes of the NBA Draft was South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles seemingly appeared furious when it was announced he was being taken by the Toronto Raptors. The player stood up from his seat stone-faced and was caught on camera exclaiming “f***” after the pick was announced.
It was a bit of an odd reaction from the outside looking in. Sure, it’s not like the Raptors are a great team or anything, but there are much, much worse landing spots than Toronto — and you get the added benefit of moving to Canada.
Still, the reaction went viral enough that the Raptors felt the need to go in damage control a little.
Here’s the thing: There are a ton of reasons he might have had this reaction. Even before the pick was announced South Carolina star Chloe Kitts, who is also Murray-Boyles’ girlfriend, was in tears. The Wizards, Pelicans, and Nets had all just made their picks, teams where the two would have been geographically closer, and now they were into a part of the draft where Murray-Boyles was destined to land much further away from South Carolina.
That wasn’t an explicit reason why he appeared upset, but one justified why he might have been upset. After the draft he sat down and talked more and really explained his reaction.
“WTF, for sure. WTF all the way until my name got called. It was crazy, but jeez, I almost shed a tear. I tried to keep my composure, but it’s surreal. I dreamed of this when I was a kid, but you never really know until you’re there.”
Murray-Boyles went on to say he’s glad to join a winning organization, and plans to “@ Drake” as one of his first moves in Toronto. To be honest, this explanation makes a lot of sense. While he was a Top 100 recruit out of high school, Murray-Boyles had a meteoric rise in the pre-draft process to become a Top 10 pick. It’s probably not something he envisioned, which explains why he had his “wtf” reaction.
Honestly, it’s not nearly as bad as everyone is making out — and judging from his conversation with the Raptors’ staff he’s pumped to get there.
We can pump the brakes a little on the “he doesn’t want to be there” talk.
