Maybe this was already discussed when the lifting comments came out but I thought this piece was pretty instructive in digging further in to what makes CMB tick and dominate.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nba/article/collin-murray-bruiser-forcing-his-way-into-essential-role-with-raptors/“I like to get a lot of extra lifting in,” he says. “Just so I can gain muscle. I’m not going in the weight room just to bulls---. I’m trying to get the most out of it possible. I ask for a lot of extra stuff when we finish a workout. I always do more upper-body stuff, because we do more lower-body-focused stuff, a lot of core work. I definitely want to get a full body feel, and especially I want to feel sore after a back-to-back, because I know going into the next day, it’s a rest day, so I know I can recover. It’s just trying to get the most out of my time.”
“I'm a rebounder, like, that was the aspect of my game in college,” he said. “The really big thing with getting rebounds is making multiple efforts. So I've always had that in my game, and just being in the right spot, at the right time. I've been doing the work early. There's been some things that I’ve needed to adjust to, especially in a bigger, faster, stronger league. It's not as easy as letting the rebound fall in your hands. You gotta go get it. So that's been really big for me.”
I admit I was very skeptical of the fit because the track record of smaller players succeeding as bigs in the league isn't the greatest but CMB is simply an outlier. A very special one. He hasn't even really been asked to show off any of his ball skills as a creator and he's got plenty of that in his bag too.
I also previously thought they should try to convert him to a kawhi-like power wing and maybe shed some weight to unlock some latent athleticism, but that was all wrong. CMB is plenty strong, athletic and lengthy enough to get by right now. He's a Barkley and that's how they should treat him.
Teams built on grit/hustle usually overperform and are a blueprint for most every successful championship team as saw we ourselves in 2019. The key will be having just enough scoring/shooting to keep up but even then they've shot sub-40 and managed to win, so the defensive upside is that strong. Once they get out of this shooting slump they're gonna surprise a lot of people.
That project 6'9 build is still alive and they finally found the defensive anchor for it.
