{"id":248845,"date":"2025-08-24T19:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-24T19:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/248845\/"},"modified":"2025-08-24T19:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-24T19:50:09","slug":"sixers-jared-mccain-on-first-meeting-joel-embiid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/248845\/","title":{"rendered":"Sixers&#8217; Jared McCain on first meeting Joel Embiid"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jared McCain emerged as a bright spot in the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/philadelphia-76ers\/20\/\" data-autotag=\"b3f2a355-8d98-44c0-a603-3f9a2d8bc375\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Philadelphia 76ers<\/a>&#8216; 2024-25 NBA season. The rookie guard finished seventh in Rookie of the Year voting, despite only suiting up for 23 games, with eight coming as a starter. Still, even when he wasn&#8217;t showcasing his skills on the court, McCain was working to establish himself as part of the Sixers roster behind the scenes.<\/p>\n<p>McCain has developed relationships with multiple members of the Sixers organization, including superstar big man Joel Embiid. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/nba\/76ers\/news\/sixers-rising-star-opens-up-on-relationship-with-joel-embiid-01k2bjv64vxa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">In a recent interview with &#8220;Sixers on SI,&#8221; <\/a>McCain explained how he didn&#8217;t know what to expect before meeting Embiid, but is now comfortable when talking with the former MVP.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think, coming in as a rookie, you never know with these superstars how they&#8217;re going to be, how they&#8217;re going to react to especially me, seeing my social media, a lot of people have that first impression that is not always the best when I meet people. But for him, it was just he was way more chill than I thought it was going to be, and that&#8217;s when I first met him,&#8221; McCain said. &#8220;I think seeing him throughout the season, seeing what the media says, and then actually talking to him in person, it&#8217;s like he&#8217;s just misunderstood in a lot of ways.<\/p>\n<p>When not playing basketball, McCain is quite active on social media. Therefore, it&#8217;s understandable why he was nervous about meeting some of the elder statesmen on the Sixers roster. After all, the difference in generations can sometimes be a stumbling block for a rookie. Fortunately for McCain and for the Sixers, there were no such issues.<\/p>\n<p>Now, with his rookie season in the bag, McCain will undoubtedly be challenging for a larger role within Nick Nurse&#8217;s rotation. He will form part of a young and exciting trio, which also includes Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe. And, if Embiid can get and stay healthy, he will have a fantastic on-court leader to learn from and help develop his game. McCain is in a great position to develop his game in the coming years. He has talented teammates, a strong and talented coaching staf, and an opportunity to cement himself as part of the rotation for years to come.<\/p>\n<p>Sixers fans have a lot to be excited about.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jared McCain emerged as a bright spot in the Philadelphia 76ers&#8216; 2024-25 NBA season. The rookie guard finished&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248846,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3769],"tags":[679,7,2855,1603,1255,2854,936,1604,70,85,6,67,3117,6724,8181,61,134,678,207,3817,132,66,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-248845","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-76ers","8":"tag-76ers","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-embiid","11":"tag-jared","12":"tag-jared-mccain","13":"tag-joel","14":"tag-joel-embiid","15":"tag-mccain","16":"tag-national","17":"tag-national-sports","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-nick","21":"tag-nick-nurse","22":"tag-nurse","23":"tag-overall","24":"tag-overall-positive","25":"tag-philadelphia","26":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","27":"tag-philadelphia76ers","28":"tag-positive","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-sports-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115085484514736747","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248845\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}