The Likeliest Long-Term Outcome of the Jared McCain Trade

PHILADELPHIA — Jared McCain offered a giggle at the premise of the question.

The Oklahoma City Thunder, it was posited, have built a winning culture that has long eluded the Sixers.

"I think with OKC, just being here, you can tell the people, I mean, having Shai playing at the level he's playing at, being able to feed off his energy and just the culture in the OKC organization is amazing," McCain said. "As well as the Sixers."

That's the professional thing to say. He went out of his way to not take a shot at his former team, even extending a life raft to the team that broke his heart with a surprise trade.

"They'll figure it out. I have no doubt they'll figure it out. They got great players over there. They'll figure it out," McCain said with a smile.

That has to cut a little deep.

A second-year player who logged a total of 60 games with his first team suddenly patronizing that team. He's the ex who ended up with someone better, and he's realized it.

It looked that way when Jaylin Williams walled Cam Payne on a handoff to McCain, who was sprinting to the left wing. Payne getting stuck forced Drummond to switch out to contest. It was too late. McCain buried a 3 to give OKC a nine-point advnatage with four minutes and 14 seconds to play in the first quarter.

It looked that way a few seconds later, when Williams bounced a pass between his legs to McCain while dislodging Trendon Watford on a handoff. Watford fought through, but, again, too late. This 3 from the top of the key expanded the Thunder's lead to 12 with three minutes and 47 seconds to play in the first.

That was, for all intents and purposes, as far as the game needed to go. Oklahoma City never looked back.

The cheers rained down as McCain sniped apart his former squad, yet another reminder of the reaction to the trade both locally and nationally.

Yet another bullet added to the ammunition of outrage the fans feel toward Daryl Morey for what they perceive as a bad move but is really just a pattern of viewing most ancillary players as interchangeable rather than as crucial materials to the team's fabric.

Yet another bullet of ammunition for the disapproval they feel toward Josh Harris for overseeing a team that once again skirted the luxury tax at the trade deadline amid an All-NBA campaign from Tyrese Maxey and a feel-good rebound season for Joel Embiid.

Yet another bullet of ammunition for the anger they feel toward Nick Nurse, who deserves questioning after OKC head coach Mark Daigneault immediately got better use out of McCain upon his arrival than the Sixers head coach did all season.

There is no question that the Thunder—and McCain—won the deal in the short term.

But if you remove the emotion from it, will that hold true in the long run?

To be clear, McCain is a good young player. He offers a premium skill that would make pretty much any team salivate. The Sixers, under the current collective bargaining agreement, could very much use talent on cost-effective contracts.

But there's a reality that must be addressed, as well.

Over whom was McCain ever going to become a starter? Was he going to usurp Maxey? Was he going to take VJ Edgecombe's spot after an excellent rookie campaign?

If the Sixers are serious about retaining Quentin Grimes beyond this season—and that has to remain a question, as much as Philadelphia's public-facing sentiment is that they hope to bring him back—where does McCain fit into this picture?

Grimes, with all the warts he has as a player—and, boy, is he a flummoxing player—has defensive upside, burst off the dribble and athleticism that McCain likely will never have.

You can develop some athleticism. You cannot fill intangible gaps that big.

If Grimes is truly here to stay, he will always have the inside track to a coach's heart over McCain.

You may posit that McCain and Grimes could've played together, anchoring second-unit lineups while Maxey and Embiid rest.

Wouldn't that be talking out of both sides of the mouth, though? Isn't the goal to stagger the two best players so that one is always on the court? Wouldn't that mean that Maxey is always on the court with a better defensive guard when Embiid is sitting? Wouldn't that mean that Embiid is always with Edgecombe and Grimes when he's not with Maxey?

Sure, Paul George's inclusion in the equation adds some flexibility to that dilemma. But what about two years from now, when George is ostensibly elsewhere?

You might argue that there was no reason to sell on McCain now when you weren't facing a difficult decision, at least for the time being.

But even if McCain developed further, his value would always exist under a low ceiling in Philadelphia because of the traffic in front of him on the depth chart.

Daryl Morey's acquisition of James Harden back in 2012 illustrates that. Sure, Oklahoma City was and remains a small-market team. They made their bed with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. Their total offer to Harden, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year, fell some $25 million below the contract to which Morey and the Rockets eventually signed him.

But the Rockets acquired the new face of their franchise, along with salary filler, for Kevin Martin, Jeremy Lamb, two first-round picks, and a second-round pick.

Martin played one season with Oklahoma City. Lamb lasted several years there. One first-round pick became Steven Adams. The other became Mitch McGary, a two-year NBAer from a maybe-average draft class. The second-rounder became Alex Abrines, who didn't come to the NBA for three years after he was drafted.

The best value the Thunder got in that deal was Adams, an offensively-limited big man who is known for setting mean screens and owning the glass.

The draft capital is valuable. It is up to you to make the most of it.

The Thunder certainly did not.

But the principle is that only the single best sixth man in the league is going to fetch anything resembling a ransom.

Maybe McCain becomes that. Maybe he doesn't. But when a team offers a first-round pick from a team that can't get out of its own way and three second-round picks for a player who has logged a grand total of 60 NBA games and only looked good for maybe 30 of them, you're not so crazy for taking it.

Not because the player you're giving up isn't good and you're not bullish on his future. But because that first-round pick, alone, could fetch you a prospect who better fits your future from a loaded draft class.

It's no guarantee that the Sixers don't use that pick to add another guard. Morey, if he's still around, leans talent-first and probably isn't going to change his philosophy some 20 years into his executive career.

But if adding a guard, be it via trade or draft, represents just one plausible outcome in a field of plausible outcomes, are you going to logically bet on the one or take the field? You'll probably take the field, meaning it's far more likely that the Sixers redeem that first-round pick on a position of actual need rather than on a player who has to battle with Maxey, Edgecombe and maybe Grimes just to play 15 minutes per game.

While we're trying to detangle the likely from the unlikely, how do the Thunder view McCain?

Perhaps the Thunder view McCain as the eventual Lu Dort replacement next to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the starting lineup. Or perhaps he's a rotation fixture when Ajay Mitchell, Alex Caruso, Cason Wallace, Isaiah Joe or Aaron Wiggins get too expensive to pay.

Whatever it is, it is much more likely that the Thunder view McCain as the piece that makes it easier for them to not pay one or multiple of their rotation fixtures in the coming years. It is much less likely that the Sixers, who have consistently identified multi-year NBA players in the draft under this regime, inexplicably missed on the star upside that the Thunder are destined to pull out of McCain.

"I'm not involved in the trades. So I'm not going to make comments on the acquisitions. I do know I have high respect for Philadelphia, their decision-making process, their group," Daigneault told reporters ahead of Monday's game between the Sixers and Thunder.

"I know that transactions are to be evaluated in a sequence. They aren't to be evaluated in a vacuum. They are set up by previous transactions, they set up future transactions. It's hard to evaluate those things in a vacuum. You never know what a team is planning and how that fits in.

"That's why our group, Sam and his guys and Daryl Morey and his guys do their due diligence and work the league around the deadline. That's why all this happens. But I do have great respect for their front office."

Sometimes it takes unpopular decisions to earn respect. The most fun trades to talk about are the ones that leave someone licking their wounds and the other person celebrating. The Thunder are celebrating now. McCain, riding shooting heaters with a championship-ready team that serves him well on both ends of the court, is celebrating.

And in due time, the Sixers will likely be celebrating, too. Even if their fans are still licking their wounds in the months to come.