CAMDEN, N.J. — Jared McCain is joining a Philadelphia 76ers team that, given its win-now focus, doesn’t suit many other rookies well. The 16th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft is making the jump to the professional ranks in an environment stuffed with heaps of pressure and high expectations. Fortunately, he’s built to thrive in such harsh conditions.
“With Duke being such a big platform in college, obviously, that comes with a lot of hate and a lot of scrutiny wherever you go. But I think that's preparing me for where I'm at, especially with Philly,” McCain said after his selection to the Sixers. “So, I think I'm ready for it.”
After being rumored far and wide to trade their pick for a more proven player, the 76ers stood pat and made their highest draft selection under Daryl Morey. Philadelphia's president of basketball operations said that the team identified McCain as a top-10 talent in this year’s draft class.
The 20-year-old guard standing 6-foot-3 is not only one of the best shooters in the class but also a creative scorer and tenacious presence all over the court.
McCain was named the Gatorade California Player of the Year twice — a feat that has only been done by Evan Mobley and Jrue Holiday since 2000 — and became a five-star recruit after a storied career for Centennial High School.
In his lone season at Duke, McCain was named to the ACC All-Freshman team and averaged 14.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.9 assists, and 1.1 steals per game while shooting 46.2 percent from the field, 41.4 percent from three-point range (on 5.8 attempts per game), and 88.5 percent from the free-throw line. He scored 30 points in two of the Blue Devils' four March Madness games and notched at least five rebounds in each one.
Jon Scheyer, McCain's head coach at Duke, told ESPN before the draft that McCain was “the most disciplined worker he has been around in his entire time with the program as both a player and coach.” Coaches often talk about their own players and their work ethics glowingly but that assessment from Scheyer is truly impeccable praise.
Scheyer played four seasons at Duke alongside 11 players who eventually made it to the NBA. He joined the program's coaching staff in 2013 as an assistant and now has two seasons as a head coach, watching dozens of players reach the pros, including All-Stars Jayson Tatum, Zion Williamson, Paolo Banchero, and Brandon Ingram. Out of all the players who balled out and gave it their all under his watch, it’s McCain who worked on his game the most diligently.
With a pedigree like that, McCain was widely seen as a prospect who would be selected somewhere in the middle of the first round in the 2024 NBA Draft. The 76ers were fortunate enough to bring him aboard, giving them a solid role player for the time being that could blossom into much more.
Jared McCain credits older brother in achieving NBA dream
“Basketball's obviously my main focus and this has been my dream since I was literally five, four years old,” McCain said. “So I'm gonna do whatever I can just to win and bring a positive attitude and just have fun, man. I'm just joyful with life and I try to bring that everywhere I go.”
That upbeat nature McCain is proud to tout comes from his family. His older brother, Jayce, accompanied him in his post-selection interview and gushed about how hard he had worked to make it this far. With tears falling down his face, McCain flashed an unbreakable smile as he told ESPN's Monica McNutt about his desire to help the 76ers win.
Jayce developed blood clots that complicated his own playing career, though he persevered. He appeared in 84 games over three seasons at Division II Cal State San Marcos, the most games by a single player in program history. He joined his younger brother at Duke as a graduate assistant and while he may not be heading to the league himself, the motivation he provided for his younger brother helped him get there.
Jared McCain talked about making it to the NBA as a goal they accomplished together. Brotherly love became the wind in his sails as he dominated the competition in college and became a big-name draft prospect. Staying upbeat and working hard to make himself and his family proud got him to Philadelphia as a first-round pick.
“It's got me this far in my life,” he said, “so I won't stop now.”
Shooting threes is a premium skill in the modern NBA, so betting on one of the very best shooters in the draft makes a ton of sense. McCain can drain threes off the catch or the dribble and has no fear when pulling shots from way downtown. His shot mechanics are clean and easily repeatable. He's going to draw a lot of attention and hard closeouts, which he can take advantage of with his strong, creative attacks off the dribble.
While rebounding at the guard spot is often not seen as a premium skill, it’s something McCain takes great pride in. He said that he focused on it down the stretch of the season, that it's a way he can impact winning aside from hitting shots. Despite being arguably the best shooter in the draft class, he stressed the importance of finding ways to contribute to winning besides scoring.
McCain's fit with Tyrese Maxey isn’t perfect, as both guards are undersized and may be a bit overmatched in a role where they have to consistently defend the best opposing guard. However, both of them are very skilled on offense, particularly as shooters, and will make up for their lack of high-end defensive chops with fierce competitiveness. The rookie is excited to learn more from and play with Maxey and Joel Embiid, his All-Star veterans.
“Obviously they are elite scorers, so I think I can space the floor and create space for them,” McCain told reporters at Barclays Center after being selected. “I'm excited to get to know them and learn as much as possible from them.”
McCain said playing alongside Embiid will be a “great transition” for him after playing with All-American center Kyle Filipowski. Playing off a dominant big man will obviously be a major theme with Philly, so his experience creating space for Filipowski and using the space he creates to attack will make the transition much easier.
During pre-draft workouts, McCain aimed to show teams that he can create offense with the ball in his hands and make reads out of the pick-and-roll. One of the knocks on him is that he’s the size of a guard but has the skillset of a wing and doesn’t have the explosive athleticism or elite playmaking talent to offset that. Growing in that area would be easier on a team without established stars but having the chance to grow his game more gradually will be its own blessing.
“It's funny being 6-foot-3 and being labeled as small. It's always funny when I hear that,” the 76ers rookie said. “But, yeah, in the league, it's insane. So I'm just excited to continue to work on that and then find other ways to impact winning…without being 6-foot-9.”
A native of Sacramento who went on to play college ball in Durham, McCain said he had only been to Philadelphia once. The only connection he could make to the city was to cheesesteaks. But he’s excited to find out more and to team up with Embiid, Maxey, and whoever else Philly adds this offseason.
“I don't think the draft's gonna inform what we do in free agency very much,” said Morey, who is still sitting on a massive pile of cap space and other tradable picks ahead of the start of free agency.
Daryl Morey explains 76ers' scouting plans, McCain's upside
One of the interesting tidbits McCain shared after his selection was that he didn’t talk with the Sixers in the pre-draft process. He added that he believes his agent did but it still sounded peculiar that Philly hadn’t connected with a player it felt so highly about. It was by design.
“We try to mostly be a black box for the other teams,” Morey said. “There's a lot of gamesmanship that goes on if teams know where you're heading. I was really disappointed, a lot of people were mocking him to us. So, that was bothersome. I like to be a black box. I think it creates trade optionality, so [we] tend to do all our evaluation during the season, during the period where everyone else does it.”
Morey said that the Sixers were offered numerous trades for their 16th pick. They were offered a “pretty interesting” player and other deals where they would move down but pick up more draft selections. For a team with only so many of those to trade, it was likely an alluring proposition. But no deal that came through their phones excited them more than the player they ended up selecting.
“Jared, he's just been a winner everywhere,” Morey said. “He is gonna be someone Philly loves. Pretty rare to get a combination of both a guy who's got some skills that will get him on the floor earlier, including shooting, but also with a lot of upside and on a very steep improvement curve.”
Morey acknowledged that McCain's fit with Maxey is imperfect, saying that it’s a “valid concern” to start two small guards together. But he said that McCain's strength, ability to rebound and growth as a defender make the fit more feasible. Morey also said McCain was in the 95th percentile as a teammate and hard worker.
McCain's masterful shooting not only gives him something to fall back on as he works on the rest of his game but also, in the eyes of the Sixers, can help make things easier for his teammates. Morey said that Embiid is “unguardable when he has shooting around him.” The importance of getting confident, versatile shooters around him was paramount this offseason. Even if other players of that ilk get more run than McCain early on, he’s someone who can be a legitimate floor spacer.
Every year, some players who get drafted somewhere outside the top 10 become instant impact players for their respective teams. The 76ers have no time to wait for McCain to develop into a role player as they try to get the most out of every season Embiid has left. McCain's developmental clock will tick at an ear-shattering volume as Philly tries to finally make it deep in the playoffs.
“Obviously we're planning to be the best team in the East next year and be right there with Boston and the other competitors,” Morey said. “It's a high bar.”
As tough as it will be for a rookie to significantly help the 76ers get on the level of the reigning champion Boston Celtics, Jared McCain is going to do everything in his power to strive toward that goal. And he’ll surely have a smile on his face the whole way.
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