PHILADELPHIA — The night started with a standing ovation.
Jared McCain’s first two shots were 3-pointers that both fell softly through the net, each one sending the sold-out crowd at Xfinity Mobile Arena into a frenzy. By the end of the night, Lu Dort was raising McCain’s arm skyward as they left the floor, as if McCain was Rocky Balboa himself.
Monday marked McCain’s first game against the Sixers since Philly dealt him to the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder at the trade deadline — a move that has served as a lightening rod for criticism in Philadelphia from the fan base towards the Sixers’ front office.
McCain looked good in his return, scoring 13 points in 25 minutes off the bench and looking as comfortable as he has always looked in a Thunder uniform. As expected, Oklahoma City made the actual game an afterthought, winning 123-103, but McCain’s presence mattered for something more.
The trade itself remains complicated. In a vacuum, the 76ers came away with a first-round pick and three second-rounders. Sentiment around the league, from a basketball perspective, is that the Sixers received good value for McCain. But the 16th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft was also a well-liked figure in the Sixers’ locker room. He was someone who almost never had a bad day, which holds real value over an 82-game season. That human element is hard to replace.
“I think it’s always going to feel a little weird, because it just happened so quickly, and it’s only been like a month or so since it happened,” McCain said. “It was nice to come back, but it will definitely always feel weird coming back here. It’s like a nostalgic feeling to come back and not live here. Hopefully, there is some closure that comes soon. But I still don’t think I have closure yet.”
After the game, Tyrese Maxey, Trendon Watford and several other Sixers, made sure to greet McCain and wish him well. It says a lot about how much McCain endeared himself to his former teammates and his new teammates that both teams have been simultaneously happy with the role McCain has carved out with the Thunder.
Sixers head coach Nick Nurse praised McCain as a “tremendous person and worker,” a sentiment also felt by other authority figures on the team roster. It’s fair to ask if that’s the way Nurse feels, why trade McCain in the first place?
This is where context comes into play. The Thunder have an infrastructure for McCain to be on the floor and to thrive that the 76ers simply don’t. Oklahoma City can put perimeter defenders around McCain that allows him to not be exposed defensively. The Sixers couldn’t do that. Right or wrong, Nurse didn’t feel he could play McCain a ton of minutes with where he was at defensively. It’s also clear the 76ers felt there would be a ceiling for McCain’s role, going forward. Because of Maxey and VJ Edgecombe, McCain no longer projected as a long-term starter. Being a sixth man was probably where McCain was going to max out, at least for the foreseeable future.
But fit alone doesn’t explain the trade. The timing and communication of the trade — combined with team executive Daryl Morey’s “selling high” comment — left both fans and players unsettled. The Sixers didn’t mismanage the transaction — they mismanaged the narrative.
It’s understandable why fans were and still are so angry. McCain was electric in his rookie season before a knee injury prematurely ended it. Whatever his ceiling turns out to be as a player, he’s a unique and exciting one. He moves without the ball as well as almost any player in the league. His jumper is truly a beautiful thing to watch. He’s got chops off the dribble, and he can bend a defense without having the ball in his hands. With the Sixers’ state of finances for such an expensive roster, they certainly need as many good players on rookie-level contracts as they can get. But the trade hasn’t been the disaster that it’s being made out to be.
It’s true the Sixers have undergone some trauma since the start of February. Paul George picked up a 25-game NBA mandated suspension. Embiid has missed almost a month due to a strained oblique. Even Maxey, the 76ers’ lone All-Star this season, missed significant time due to injury.
But none of this — not the injuries, trading McCain, George’s suspension — have sunk the 76ers. George is eligible to return on Wednesday night against the Chicago Bulls. The Sixers finished 13-12 in his league-mandated absence. The Sixers were in the sixth spot in the Eastern Conference when they traded McCain. They are currently seventh, at 39-33, and one game behind the Atlanta Hawks for the sixth spot.
Still, the human element of it all is hard to ignore. If McCain had stayed, would his role have expanded with the injuries? Without a doubt. The Sixers have been one of the most injured teams in the league. Eventually, circumstance would have forced McCain onto the floor. Would his role have expanded had the Sixers remained fully healthy? Probably not significantly. At best, he was clearly the fourth guard in Nurse’s rotation. And, that probably would not have changed.
But, losing him, even with a promising haul of picks, left an emotional scar. Weeks after the trade, Maxey spoke about how much the team missed McCain. In the days after the trade, Maxey and Embiid clearly measured their words when speaking to the media. Whether those picks translate into meaningful contributions remains to be seen. But, the Sixers are certainly under some pressure to get the picks right, whether they use them in a draft, or use them in a trade.
The story needs to play out. What do the Sixers do with the first-round pick in June? How do they manage those three second-round picks? And what kind of player does McCain ultimately mature into? If he becomes a star, All-Star or dynamic starting-level player, the vitriol will be well-earned.
If he remains the 25-minute-per-game player that the Thunder currently have him at, the Sixers have a chance to come out ahead.
The conversation surrounding the trade will likely last for multiple years. And that convo remains layered, one that mixes raw emotion and reaction with context and a touch of reality.
The McCain trade may feel like a loss for Philly fans.
The truth is, it’s still undecided.