Sign in Subscribe
Newsletter

Signature Significance: Jared McCain

Jared Dubin

Jared Dubin

— 2 min read
Signature Significance: Jared McCain
Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images
Subscribe now

I want to, once again, revisit a concept called signature significance. I’ve written about this several times before, as it related to Robert Williams III, Andrew Nembhard, and Trayce Jackson-Davis.

Allow Bill James (sorry) to explain why, sometimes, we actually can learn something from a mere one-game sample size:

[In] certain relatively rare cases of extreme performance, significant separations in data can occur in surprisingly small samples, including one game. A perfect example would be the game in which Roger Clemens struck out 15 batters without walking anyone. That game, in and of itself, presents credible, or "significant" evidence that Clemens is a pitcher of some quality. Why? Because a poor pitcher never (almost literally never) has such a game…

Strikeout to walk ratio is an excellent indicator of a pitcher’s ability to win, and pitcher who strikes out 15 and walks none in a game is almost certain to have a good strikeout to walk ratio. We are in the habit of looking for direct significance; one game is never directly significant. No one game makes a man a proven pitcher. What small data samples can occasionally provide is indicative significance — the significance of the signature they bear.

That brings me to Sixers rookie Jared McCain, who last night against the Cavaliers dropped 34 points and dished out 10 assists. He went 6 of 13 from deep and added 2 rebounds and 2 steals. As a rookie. In his 11th career game and first career start.

What’s the significance of this? Well, after last night, these were the only rookies to go for 30-plus points and 10-plus assists while making at least five shots from beyond the arc:

  • Trae Young (4x)
  • Stephen Curry (3x)
  • Jason Kidd
  • Damon Stoudamire
  • Allen Iverson
  • Jamaal Tinsley
  • Andrew Nembhard
  • Jared McCain

Throw in McCain’s two steals and it’s just Steph (3x), Kidd, Iverson, Tinsley, and now McCain.

That’s a hell of a list to be on! The “worst” players are on are Stoudamire, Tinsley, and Nembhard. Stoudamire’s career looks worse in hindsight because he was so inefficient, but he was in the league for a long-ass time and extremely productive. Tinsley was a long-time starting point guard who had an 11-year career, and Nembhard is on his way to a similarly-lengthy run in the league and just got a three-year, $59 million contract extension this offseason. Everybody else on the list other than Stoudamire was a perennial All-Star.

You don’t wind up on a list like this by accident. I think we can say that, at the very least, McCain is going to be in this league for a very long time. And the ceiling we should be considering is a hell of a lot higher than that. The genie is out of the bottle here. McCain should be starting the rest of the way (and Nick Nurse is already thinking about that, thankfully), and the Sixers should be thinking big about what his future can look like.

Read more