CAMDEN, N.J. — The difference in tenor between messenger and message couldn’t have been starker as Jared McCain sat before microphones Wednesday afternoon.

The second-year guard, with his irrepressible smile, didn’t dim it even as he recalled what the last few weeks have been.

Of crying in the locker room after getting his right thumb tangled up and “hearing a pop” in a late-September workout, knowing instantly something was seriously wrong. Of being overcome by emotion and having to pull over on his drive home when the training staff reported results of an MRI that showed a torn ligament requiring surgery.

And of the fiery defiance of a player who saw last season ended by a knee injury only to have this season’s build-up halted by injury again.

“The universe is throwing haymakers at me,” McCain started at the team’s practice facility, “but it’s all part of the process.”

The first-round pick in 2024 has a nonpareil resilience. But he’d be OK with it not being tested quite so regularly, an end-of-tunnel light he hopes to glimpse when the injury is reevaluated in two weeks.

McCain spoke Wednesday for the first time since the “freak, stupid little thing” occurred in a 5-on-5 workout ahead of training camp, indefinitely delaying his second campaign in the NBA.

“Somebody was rolling to the basket, and I was tagging him,” McCain said. “I put my hand on him, and I heard it. I heard it pop. I went to the sideline, I tried to hold a basketball and I tried to shoot and it just moved this way, and I was like, Yeah, I’m cooked. …

“I just immediately started crying. It is just so frustrating when that happens. I knew something was wrong immediately.”

McCain is halfway through the four-week period between surgery and reevaluation. In two weeks, he hopes to transition from a hard cast to a softer, playing cast. He’s able to maintain his conditioning, including the final steps of the meniscus rehab, and handle the ball with his weaker left hand.

But he’s champing at the bit for more, especially since he feels like he’s in game shape, thumb notwithstanding.

“All I know is, I get here pretty early in the morning, and he’s usually out on the court doing something (when I get here),” coach Nick Nurse said. “He’s continuing to have this I’m-not-going-to-be-denied attitude. He’s out there working on everything.”

McCain showed immense promise last year in 23 games. The NBA’s top rookie in the season’s first month and a half, he averaged 15.3 points, 2.6 assists and 2.4 rebounds while shooting 38.3 percent from 3-point range and 46.0 from the field.

But he suffered a meniscus tear in December against Indiana. Surgery ended his season, and the 76ers stumbled to a 24-58 campaign.

McCain was just about back to full health this summer when the thumb injury became another test of his ability to withstand tests. After a brief dip into what he calls, “a depressive state,” the smile is back. So is McCain on the side of 76ers’ practices like a chained dog straining at his lead.

While he’s not on the court, Nurse described him as, “totally engaged and involved.” McCain has grown adept at learning from watching, which continues in a preseason of installing new looks on offense.

“On the bench, I’m doing breathwork as I’m watching to just try and stay in the present and be in the moment of the game, because it’s easy to get so lost when they’re playing stuff on the Jumbotron or whatever,” he said. “So I try to stay locked in and still try and notice myself, what would I do here? What would I do different? What did I like from that play? Just trying to stay engaged as much as possible.”

McCain is a valuable cog in the 76ers’ shifting identity. Tyrese Maxey articulated it best last month, that the 76ers want to play a certain way no matter who is on the court, a consistency lacking in recent years when Joel Embiid, Paul George and other veterans have been out.

The nexus of that identity has shifted toward a young backcourt, led by Maxey and successive first-rounders McCain and VJ Edgecombe.

“Just that culture of, we’re going to play hard,” McCain said. “We’re not going to have expectations. And just trying to win. I guess what we want to do is just win. And I think you have to be in a positive mindset to even start that.”