Jared McCain Is Making The Sixers' Trade Deadline Deal Look Even Worse

Tyrese Maxey played nearly 47 minutes in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against the New York Knicks on Wednesday night. He finished with a team-high 26 points on 9-of-23 shooting, although he ran out of steam at the end of the game.

After a quiet first quarter, Maxey scored 15 of the Sixers' 29 points in the second quarter to put them up by one point at halftime. However, he sputtered after halftime and scored only seven points on 3-of-9 shooting in the second half while accruing more turnovers (three) than assists (two), which is also known as a Harden.

After the game, Paul George conceded that the Sixers "just might have run out of gas a little bit" in the fourth quarter, during which they scored only 12 points on 4-of-19 shooting. They held the Knicks to 19 points in the fourth quarter and had the game there for the taking, but they cooled off just in time for the Knicks to take a commanding 2-0 series lead.

The following night, Jared McCain scored 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting (including 4-of-5 from deep) in 18 minutes off the bench for the Oklahoma City Thunder in their 125-107 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. The Thunder survived foul trouble for soon-to-be two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in large part because of McCain and Ajay Mitchell, who finished with 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting in 30 minutes.

Those two games were the perfect encapsulation of why the McCain trade proved so divisive earlier this season. The Sixers are desperate for bench depth without him, while the Thunder, who have far more depth than the Sixers, are still relying on McCain to play a sizable role against the Lakers.

Did the Sixers really sell high?

When team president Daryl Morey made his infamous "sold high" comments about McCain after the trade deadline, he also explained his rationale for the deal.

"We think the draft picks we got will help us more in the future and could have helped us this deadline," Morey said. "The picks we got were offered to many teams, and nothing materialized for a player that we thought could move the needle with those picks now, but we feel like going forward, those picks will help us build the team in the future in a good way."

Left unsaid: The Sixers made this year's team worse in the hopes of using those assets to build a better team in the future.

It isn't fair to say the Sixers punted on the season by trading McCain, even if it was motivated in part by their desire to get below the luxury-tax threshold. After all, they still had Maxey, VJ Edgecombe, Paul George and Joel Embiid.

But it is fair to say that they didn't do everything in their power to maximize this season. Quite the contrary, in fact.

At the time of the trade, McCain had yet to regain his rookie-year mojo amidst his recovery from both a torn meniscus and torn UCL in his thumb. He averaged only 6.6 points in 16.8 minutes across 37 appearances with the Sixers this season while shooting 38.5% overall.

The Sixers might have been afraid that McCain's stellar-but-brief rookie-season breakout was a small-sample-size mirage. He's proving against the Lakers that it was not.

In Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals, McCain finished with 12 points on 4-of-7 shooting (4-of-5 from deep) to go with two rebounds and two assists in 15 minutes. Through two games, he's leading all players in the series with eight made threes, and Rui Hachimura is shooting like he's Stephen Curry right now.

Perhaps McCain never would have regained his groove in Philly. OKC's hellacious defense might be the perfect environment to hide him on that end of the floor. But he took note of Morey's "sold high" comment.

"It definitely hurts," McCain told Logan Murdock of The Ringer. "In my opinion, I try to prove the people right that really believe in me, whether it's my family, my support system. It's not about proving the team wrong or whatever, proving the GM wrong. Whatever he said, that's his opinion. I just try and be myself and not worry about that."

McCain joined Amazon Prime's Nightcap after his Game 2 eruption and got asked about the trade. He described it as "heartbreaking," but added that OKC has been "a blessing" for him.

Meanwhile, the Sixers are sorely feeling his absence.

Where the Sixers could use McCain

One of Morey's other notable justifications for the McCain trade revolved around his opportunity for minutes in Philadelphia.

"Our path here is a little bit muted relative to where his path could be on another team," Morey said. "It would be hard to get to starter quality, which is the return we got."

One month later, Maxey suffered a pinky injury that caused him to miss 10 games and continues to plague him in the playoffs. Even if Quentin Grimes slid into the starting lineup alongside Edgecombe without Maxey, McCain would have been the first guard off the bench for those few weeks.

Head coach Nick Nurse might have been reluctant to use McCain much in the playoffs, particularly if opponents tried to target him defensively. (It's worth noting that the Lakers haven't gone that route much yet.) But Maxey and Edgecombe could still play 40-plus either way. The Sixers could have just used McCain as a brief reprieve for either starter.

It's also worth noting that the Sixers' bench combined to score 15 points against the Knicks in Game 2. McCain had 18 points on his own in the Thunder's Game 2.

McCain's long-range prowess would be a godsend for the shooting-starved Sixers. The starters came out firing against the Knicks in Game 2 without Embiid, but they gassed out late after barely leaving the floor in the second half.

Perhaps the Sixers wouldn't have been able to get what they did for McCain—the No. 22 pick in this year's draft along with three second-round picks—had they waited to trade him until this offseason. But the runway he would have had during the regular season in Maxey's absence could have helped him rebuild his trade value.

And if McCain saved the Sixers in Game 2 like he did for the Thunder, the Sixers might have been shutting down trade inquiries into him for anything short of a superstar.

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Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM.

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