Sixers rookie Jared McCain remaining positive in recovery from knee surgery: ‘It’s all a part of the plan’
McCain, who averaged 15.3 points and 2.6 assists in 23 games and was a Rookie of the Year frontrunner before the injury, was named to the Rising Stars event at All-Star Weekend on Tuesday.
![Jared McCain of the Sixers leaves his press conference where he discussed his recovery from his injury on Jan. 28, 2025.](https://www.inquirer.com/resizer/v2/ZH57BQGTY5DCTL6RY4BN6VPX3A.jpg?auth=fdee2f0ab8a4760e35b2aa2b70e3299f9dccb5ee2dfa7fecabdff38678a3fcf2&width=760&height=507&smart=true)
Jared McCain had cleared concussion protocol. But when he returned to a Dec. 13 game against the Indiana Pacers and began guarding Pascal Siakam, the 76ers rookie guard felt the pain in his left knee.
“Wow, yeah, he could easily score on me if he just backed me down,” McCain told himself at that moment. “My knee is really hurting.”
An MRI the following day revealed a torn meniscus requiring surgery, which prematurely ended what had been an excellent start to McCain’s debut NBA season. In McCain’s first public comments since that procedure, the 20-year-old acknowledged the disappointment that has peppered the past six weeks. But McCain also presented the optimism that has made him an endearing personality, in addition to the instant-impact player as one of the bright spots during a mostly disastrous Sixers season.
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“I just know it’s part of my process,” said McCain, who was using a cane Tuesday night at the Wells Fargo Center. “I know I’m going to come back even better, and it’s all a part of the plan. I’m excited that I get to learn new things. I get to watch it from a different perspective, and just try to find the good in every situation.”
McCain’s news conference arrived on a day when he and Sixers coach Nick Nurse were pleasantly surprised by the NBA’s announcement that McCain had been chosen for the Rising Stars event at All-Star weekend. It is an honor for which McCain was unsure he was eligible because of the time he’s missed with the injury. While McCain won’t be healthy to participate, the nod rewards him for the 15.3 points and 2.6 assists he averaged in 23 games, which made him an early frontrunner for the league’s Rookie of the Year award.
McCain did not know Tuesday if he would make it out to San Francisco for those All-Star festivities, where he would surely be a popular figure because of his massive TikTok following. He was born in Sacramento and spent much of his childhood in northern California, before moving to the Los Angeles area in high school.
“I was like, ‘Oh, cool,’” Nurse said of McCain’s honor. “He must have really made an impact to get on that [roster]. … And he did. He was really impactful, man. That was really surprising [for our team], how impactful he was right from the start.
“And he just kept on doing it, night after night, so good for him.”
The night McCain sustained his injury, he was among those who initially believed he had hurt his head after hitting it on the floor. He then informed the medical staff that the knee had bothered him after reentering the game, and spoke up again when he woke up the next morning with it swollen and causing him to limp. He underwent an MRI and “didn’t really think much of it, to be honest,” he said.
But when his agent called him with a “very sad tone,” McCain’s reaction was, “Oh goodness, this is not good.”
“I started crying,” McCain said. “It was very tough to hear how long I’d be out for, and to know I’d worked so hard to be in the NBA and now it just gets taken away from me so quick. It was tough, especially that night.”
The mental side has been the most challenging part of this early recovery period, McCain said. He took a break from watching basketball. Moments of frustration — “Why me?” and “Why did this happen?” — crept into his mind.
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Now, McCain has created a new goal board. He has added visualizing a healthy knee to a morning routine that also includes journaling, meditation, and reading.
The man already with eclectic interests also has picked two new “little habits”: learning to speak Spanish on the Duolingo app, and playing the piano. McCain said he was once in an advanced middle school Spanish course and is now attempting to “to regain all that.” And he has always considered when friends can “just walk in and play something” on the piano as a “really cool” party trick.
“I know it’s going to help me in the long run,” McCain said. “It’s kind of fun finding new stuff that I like and always wanted to do, and now I have some time to do it.”
That McCain has already been ruled out for the season allows him to take the rehabilitation process “super-slow … knowing it’s going to be a full recovery.” These days, that includes working to regain his balance by walking on an anti-gravity treadmill.
He also is now able to watch basketball again, with an appreciation for the more zoomed-out perspective. He has been studying his own film from earlier in the season, and can already recognize things he could have done better. He has felt support from teammates and staff while away — including from also-injured superstar Joel Embiid, who has gone through multiple meniscus surgeries and FaceTimed McCain early on to share what to expect during his road back to basketball.
McCain is several months away from playing in an NBA game again. But he is officially one of the league’s Rising Stars. And the cane he used to help him walk on Tuesday is evidence of his progress over the past six weeks, not the rookie season that was prematurely taken away.
“Luckily, I’m good now,” McCain said. " … I’m taking it step by step.”