Jared McCain NBA Draft Update
People may be sleeping on the former Duke star a bit.
As Jared McCain gets ready for the NBA Draft, he faces questions about his game.
All players but a tiny fraction over the years do. Everyone has weaknesses. Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O’ Neal couldn’t stand still and hit free throws. Bill Russell’s offense was not great. Larry Bird was slow. Nikola Jokich was a second-round pick.
Almost everyone gets picked apart and if you’re good enough, they look past your weaknesses.
In McCain’s case, his great strength is his shooting. In a recent drill, he hit 19-25 threes, which is pretty great. Of course he wasn’t being guarded, but there's no question the guy can shoot.
What’s seen as his weaknesses are his size (6-3), his ballhandling and being able to finish at the rim.
It may be overblown.
In the NBA, you can overcome a lot with intelligence. Look at Jokich. The guy has a genius for moving the ball that no one understood.
There were serious questions about Stephen Curry coming out of Davidson. Like McCain, he was 6-3 and while his shooting was freakish, his athleticism was not. He went #7 in 2009 in a draft that saw Memphis take Hasheem Thabeet at #2 and Minnesota taking Ricky Rubio at #5 and Jonny Flynn at #6.
In retrospect it looks idiotic, but people make decisions based on what they can see, projections and suppositions.
McCain probably does have work to do on his ball handling but he’s a much sneakier player than people realize, particularly in the lane. We saw some clips from last summer and he amazed us with some of what he was doing around the big guys.
Our take on him is that he’s a blend of Kobe Bryant and Jose Alvarado. His talent isn't on Kobe’s level. It’s closer to Alvarado’s although higher. But Bryant was a relentless worker and Alvarado has willed himself into the NBA.
We saw a lot of great stuff from McCain this past season. In the NBA, with a more open flow and a bit of time to improve his game, he’s got the potential to be a wonderful player.
One of the mock drafts we saw had him going to Miami and we love that idea. That’s a culture where that guy could really thrive.