After rapidly establishing himself as the brightest spot of an otherwise ugly start to the 2024-25 NBA season, Philadelphia 76ers fans were dealt a crushing blow when news broke that star rookie Jared McCain had suffered a torn meniscus in his left knee and would be out of action “indefinitely.”
Now granted, if there’s any fanbase in the NBA, nay, in professional sports, period, that knows about weathering injuries, it belongs to the 76ers, with the organization’s supporters practically having PHDs from all of the injuries they’ve had to learn about over the past few years. Still, after things slowly but surely started to turn around, the team got healthy, and key players got hot, it looked like the 76ers had found their backcourt of the future in McCain and Tyrese Maxey.
Technically, that could be true, but the key word is future, as McCain let fans know on his YouTube channel that he will be out for the remainder of the season following surgery.
No, Jared McCain, no; say it ain’t so.
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Now, for fans of the 76ers who, again, are practically expected on the injury game, the words “rest of the year” could mean a lot of things, from the rest of the regular season to the rest of the 2025 calendar year. While fans with a deep love of what “Mini Steph” brings to the table clearly hope it’s the former, for the sake of the City of Brotherly Love’s mental health, it’s probably better to assume that Duke Blue Devil’s season is over the only bit of joy he will bring to the Delaware Valley is his activities on TikTok, assuming the app isn’t banned in January of 2025.
A crushing blow? Yes. Normally, this would be where the story gets a pin put in it with a little bit of optimism to send folks home happy, but there really isn’t anything positive to take away from this news unless you really want Philly to go full-on tank mode in the pursuit of Cooper Flagg. If you fall into that tiny segment of the fanbase, then you must be thrilled. But for the rest? I am so sorry.
