What Could Jared McCain Look Like in Year Two?
Wishcasting about the Sixers’ most exciting young player is the perfect August material.
Jared McCain is an unusual spot going into year two of his NBA career.
He was, without doubt, the best performing rookie of the 2024-25 season. After having a relatively slow start through the first two weeks of the season, McCain scored 18 points and hit four threes in a loss against the Lakers, then subsequently blitzed opponents for an entire month straight. Over the course of 13 games, he averaged 21.7 points while shooting 39.8% from three on 8.3 attempts per game, capped off by a 24-point performance in Orlando against one of the best defensive teams in the NBA.
Those would be very good stats for nearly any NBA player, let alone a rookie guard who measured in at just 6-foot-2 at the draft combine. He was nothing short of outstanding.
Of course, this was all short-lived. McCain played just 23 games before tearing his meniscus during a loss to Indiana in mid-December. He saw the court for just 592 total minutes last season, a number that was eclipsed by 34 different 2024-25 NBA rookies.
It makes his standing entering his sophomore season uncommon, though not unique. Funnily enough, the player he most resembles in this situation is Joel Embiid, who once upon a time entered the 2017-18 NBA season as the league’s most exciting sophomore despite only playing 31 games as a rookie. Embiid put together some of the best all-around rookie performances the league had ever seen, but he was still largely an unproven mystery doubted by many (even though most of those doubts were specific to whether or not he could stay healthy, not whether he was a good player).
His second season lived up to the hype, to say the least. As an NBA sophomore, Embiid made second-team All-NBA, finished second in the Defensive Player of the Year voting, and even received four fifth-place votes for MVP. Before he’d even played 100 regular season games, he was rather comfortably one of the 15 best basketball players in the world.
As good as McCain was last year, no one would quite expect an Embiid-esque sophomore season from him in 2025-26. Not only is the Cameroonian center a generational talent, he was also already 23 at the time due to missing what should have been the first two seasons of his career with injury, while McCain will not be turning 22 until February. Additionally, coming off a big knee injury altogether could slow down McCain’s next season as he attempts to reintegrate himself into the NBA for the first time in nearly a year, though there’s reason to be optimistic since he didn’t rush himself back to play and has had plenty of time to rest and recover.
Offensively, McCain already answered most of the questions anyone might have had for him entering the NBA. He stepped up as an on-ball creator for a Sixers team suffering from myriad injuries and shined not just as a three-point shooter, but also getting to the rim and hitting tough mid-range buckets in big moments. He even emerged as one of the team’s best pure passers by a wide margin, and the inheritor of Nico Batum’s title as the designated post entry expert.
It’s all the more encouraging that McCain looked solid even during the season’s earliest stretch, when his triples weren’t falling. As much as his high volume deadeye marksmanship is valued, it’s also not something he always needs to have to be a positive player on the court.
There isn’t really one obvious area on offense where McCain needs to improve his game in year two. Simply asking him to turn his two-month sample size into a seven-month stint this time around should be enough. The only potential nitpick might be just his overall mesh with the other heavy hitters on the team in Embiid, Tyrese Maxey, and Paul George. The quartet only shared the court for three total games together, the first of which George left midway through with an injury, and the last of which featured McCain’s season-ending meniscus tear. McCain looked at his very best when he had chances to dominate the ball and possessions ran around his own activity, which would obviously not be the case as often while sharing the court with those high-usage players.
That’s not to say he isn’t helpful off-ball, as an S-tier off-ball shooter who’s eager to relocate and fire off the move is almost exclusively a good thing. But at his peak value, he was the primary focal point of the offense. Finding ways to improve his chemistry with the other members of the core four so that they all accentuate one another on the court is the biggest ask for McCain next season.
Defensively is where more of the real year-two questions might lie. McCain’s considered a poor defender right now, though that’s pretty much the norm for a rookie guard. Just think about how much better Maxey is at defense now than he was in 2021. Still, finding ways to hold up on the non-scoring end of the court — particularly when a backcourt partnership between him and Maxey would be one of the smallest in the entire NBA — is crucial to McCain’s sophomore season.
He had a few standout moments as a rookie on that side of the ball, most notably his game-saving defense in iso against LaMelo Ball and the Charlotte Hornets that helped the Sixers finally get their second win of the season after a 1-7 start. His shot contests are never going to be ideal with wingspan under 6-foot-4, making it easier for opponents to get shots off well above his hand, so it’s of the utmost importance that he masters the footwork required to guard on the ball in the NBA.
With Maxey and newcomer V.J. Edgecombe both possessing the footspeed and arm length necessary to pester the NBA’s quickest creators at the point of attack, McCain could form a solid defensive role for himself guarding up against small forwards, and maybe just even the occasional power forward (though that one might be a bit of a strength). He never looked overwhelmed battling against bigger bodies in the post, as McCain is pretty muscular and solidly built, giving him room to fight back and not give up easy looks. There’s even the literal perfect role model for this defensive archetype on his team already in Kyle Lowry.
McCain certainly looked more stressed defending the T.J. McConnells of the world, whose quick-twitch burst often put Jared on his backfoot and trailing. Other players might be able to recover in these scenarios, but he just doesn't have the physical tools necessary for that specific talent.
Obviously, the best possible outcome for the Sixers would be McCain vastly improving his on-ball quickness on defense so that he can oscillate between guarding quick jitterbug guards and battling beefier forwards who try to post him up. But asking for so much from someone who might not have reached 50 NBA regular season games by 2026 feels like a bit much.
The team needs McCain to not be a liability on defense, and solidify a consistent, productive role for himself on that end of the court. Any flaws of his as a defender last year weren’t harped on too much, since he was a rookie already carrying his team’s offense — and likewise, the rest of the available Sixers weren’t playing too great on defense themselves.
While there have been plenty of superstar leaps to occur in a player’s sophomore season, that should not necessarily be the expectation for McCain. That’s not to say it’s impossible he becomes a year-two All-Star and emerges as one of the league’s best players (the East has been weakened enough that there should be several new All-Stars in the conference). But rather, if he doesn’t reach All-Star status in 2026, it shouldn’t be labeled as a disappointment, or him failing to reach the level he should have.
If this next season features McCain putting up similar stats to what he did in his 13-game tear a year ago, but this time for a full 82 games, everyone should be over the moon excited about what his future holds. Even in a less optimistic outcome where he averages somewhere between 15-17 points while his three-point accuracy dips ever so slightly, that’s still pretty amazing for a second-year player drafted outside of the lottery. So long as he doesn’t simultaneously crater out of nowhere as an offensive player while being a hindrance to team success on the defensive end of the floor, McCain’s 2026 should be a reassuring watch for any and all Sixers’ fans who believe in him as a franchise cornerstone moving forward.
Daniel Olinger is a writer for the Rights To Ricky Sanchez, and author of “The Danny” column, even though he refuses to be called that in person. He can be followed on X @dan_olinger.
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