Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O’Connor explains why Philadelphia should be missing its former guard – who has been shining in his first season with Oklahoma City. Check out the full conversation on “The Kevin O’Connor Show” and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.
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Video Transcript
Why did Nick Nurse hate Jared McCain so much?
‘Cause OKC gets Jared McCain, he is instantly productive.
He’s been awesome for the Thunder.
He has two games scoring twenty-plus points already.
He played clutch fourth quarter minutes in OKC’s win against Denver on Friday.
Tons of buckets in that fourth quarter.
So Nick Nurse, the Sixers head coach, pre-trade, Jared McCain was scoring thirteen points per seventy-five plays on a effective field goal percentage of forty-eight point three.
McCain last year as a rookie, prior to his injury, was at nineteen point four points per seventy-five on fifty-fi- fifty-five point three effective field goal.
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This season with OKC, he has basically the same numbers, nineteen point five points per seventy-five on fifty-seven point nine effective field goal.
So basically the same stats for McCain with OKC as soon as he is acquired by the team compared to last year pre-injury with the Sixers.
And the big difference, I– it just– you can just see him playing with a freedom.
They’re giving him the ball into different situations.
They’re running him through actions with the intent of giving him the ball.
They’re giving him freedom to take shots off the dribble.
It felt like Nurse just took that away from him earlier in the season.
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And, and like I, I, I know Sixers fans who are s- in support of the trade will say, “Well, we have V.J.
Edgecombe and Tyrese Maxey.
There’s just not minutes for a third smaller guard in the rotation.”
That’s not an excuse.
OKC has SGA, JDub, Isaiah Joe, Cason Wallace, A.J.
Mitchell, Nikola Topi, their lottery pick last year.
OKC has a stronger argument for not wanting McCain on their team than the Sixers do.
At the end of the day, you know, Daryl Morey talks about how they sold high.
I do think Morey, from his perspective, he’s saying that he’s getting ripped for that statement still.
Every day Sixers fans are commenting about that.
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He– from his perspective, he’s saying, “We sold high ’cause his value was only gonna get lower here.”
He’s just not saying the second part is that Nick Nurse wasn’t playing him.
The reason why McCain’s value was dropping was because of Nick Nurse.
That’s the way I feel about it here.
Philly had to trade McCain now ’cause it was only gonna get worse.
Nurse failed McCain.
That’s just the reality of it.
Nick Nurse failed McCain.
The Sixers cheap ownership wanting to get under the luxury tax again, duck the tax, they failed the team as well.
And so Philly’s in this position where they kinda sorta feel like they got a shot, but they lost one of their better players, and he went to the best team in the league, the favorites in Oklahoma City.
And already they’ve figured out how to use him, and that’s been, become very obvious since that deal happened.