Jared McCain, fueled by tattered passage, stars in Thunder role with unflappable confidence

SAN ANTONIO — Nestled inside Jared McCain’s travel bag is a relatively new copy of W. Timothy Gallwey’s “The Inner Game of Tennis.” The old copy McCain bought in high school unraveled last year, marked by spills and wear. But he salvaged a memento.

A tattered fragment of Page 21, which McCain calls “the rose analogy,” lives inside the new off-white pages. The black ink has faded from the original, yellowed scrap. One handwritten word remains legible in the margins: Rose.

McCain has long memorized this passage, but he returns to the excerpt every game anyway: “When we plant a rose seed in the earth, we notice that it is small, but we do not criticize it as ‘rootless and stemless.’ … The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change; yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.”

The book suggests that our minds, crippled with doubt, get in the way of our proven capabilities. Page 21 emphasizes the process. And with 20 minutes remaining on the pregame clock Friday night, moments after the team meeting but before his Oklahoma City Thunder hit the floor for a monumental 123-108 win in Game 3 of the Western Conference finals, McCain revisited page 21.

More than the page itself, the routine summons the part of his conscience that survives on muscle memory and suffocates uncertainty. McCain, in the biggest game of his life, played carefree.

“I feel like I’ve played in big games, whether it’s in high school or Duke — definitely not the Western Conference finals — but being able to just take that confidence and be fearless, I love this so much,” McCain said after scoring a playoff career-high 24 points. “I love what my life is right now. Being able to play and contribute at this level, I never want to take it for granted. … I think that’s why I can go in there and just be fearless and trust myself.”

McCain’s trainer, Shea Frazee, suggested the book to him in eighth grade. He didn’t grab a copy until his Corona Centennial coach, Josh Giles, redirected him. McCain first thumbed the pages en route to the Tarkanian Classic, a notable high school tournament in Las Vegas. He found the rose analogy. He hit eight 3s that night, setting him on a path of exploration.

He spent his teenage years going down YouTube rabbit holes. He loved Matt D’Avella, who harped on habits. Cold showers, early mornings, meditation and yoga. McCain eventually obsessed over those things, too. He posed every morning by 6 a.m. and again every night. He loved the serenity he felt.

McCain developed a monstrous confidence rooted in routine. A security that allowed him to paint his nails and talk trash, to do TikTok dances and drill 3s. A self-awareness that grows as he attempts to understand the way he’s wired. He always sought to answer what stood in the way of his best self.

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“Even how (Victor Wembanyama) did the stuff with the monks this summer,” McCain told The Athletic in a March interview. “That’s really interesting to me. That side of the mental game of life is huge. And I’ve always liked being able to understand my emotions, understand why I think like this. Why do athletes overthink when we’re so confident in our abilities?”

In March, the Philadelphia 76ers traded McCain a year removed from Rookie of the Year buzz, after a season-ending injury limited him to 23 games. In January, he was in the G League. Daryl Morey, the decision maker who traded him, told reporters he felt he “sold high” on McCain after receiving multiple draft picks. McCain teared up when Morey called with the news.

Two months later, McCain, 22, is conjuring confidence from deep in his core. He scored 12 points in four games during a first-round series versus the Phoenix Suns, seldom used. Against the Lakers, his quick trigger became more practical. Against the Spurs, his will stands as tall as Wemby.

The Thunder faced a disastrous 15-0 deficit to begin Game 3. McCain and the bench, which totaled 76 points as a unit, evened that out. He totes courage against a defense reliant on intimidation. Wembanyama’s length leaves ball handlers impaired. But McCain, 6 foot 3 and 194 pounds, drives with reckless abandon.

With 6:36 left in the third, he had Wembanyama on an island. With limbs like foliage, Wembanyama closed out and seemed to shut off any sunlight on this drive. Then McCain plowed through him, flexing as the ball bounced in.

Nine of McCain’s 24 points came in the fourth. He morphed into whatever was required. He continued to chuck 3s. No dip, in or out of rhythm, smothered, wide open. McCain’s readiness never seemed circumstantial.

Efficiency isn’t the barometer for McCain, who made just two of his 10 3-point attempts. It’s valor. The willingness to fire, indifferent toward misses, as a second-year player. The assurance not to perform like it’s his first playoffs. The audacity involved in charging toward the most threatening rim protector in the world like a raging bull.

The viewing experience is as if Patty Mills were Californian and chronically online.

“He’s got playoff confidence, obviously, and playoff confidence isn’t always being able to perform well,” coach Mark Daigneault said. “It’s being able to take your punches and keep throwing them. He’s certainly shown the capacity to do that.”

Frazee calls it a “perform switch.” The ability McCain groomed to go from buoyant to tunnel-visioned and fiery in competition.

“When it’s time to dance, he goes and he dances,” Frazee said. “He’s able to tap into that channel and not leave.”

When he first joined the Thunder, McCain fought thoughts about his fit. He worried about pressing with his personality. Then MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, much like the rest of OKC’s nucleus, made clear that McCain’s arrival should be about regenerating his confidence and allowing him to be himself.

Now McCain lingers near teammates’ road lockers past the bus times and ropes them into TikToks at the hotel. He finds fulfillment around a team of accomplished 20-somethings, rejuvenated by the lack of ego on a title team.

“The awareness of the team, awareness of his role, awareness of his strengths — I think that’s where some of the intelligence shows up tangibly,” Daigneault said. “And then the fearlessness, those two things combined, it’s like if he struggles in a portion of a game or in a game itself, it gives you confidence that you can go back to him and he’s gonna be in character. That’s all you really want from anybody.”

McCain frequently sees his own sports psychologist, who he recalls signaling how OKC would be a “great spot” for him the more they discussed the possibility of the Thunder selecting him in the 2024 draft. In his visits with general manager Sam Presti, he felt seen. Understood.

Before McCain’s post-deadline return to Philadelphia on March 23, Presti texted him a vintage Bruce Lee video in which the legendary martial artist detailed one of his old mantras. “Be like water,” Lee said in the video. Water in a cup is a cup. Water in a bottle is a bottle. Water can flow or it can crash.

“Just be in flow,” McCain remembers.

On Friday, following a career game, McCain said he doesn’t harbor resentment for Morey.

“It’s never about proving anybody wrong for me,” McCain said after Game 3. “It’s always proving the people who believe in me right.”

And yet, it’s fair to wonder where emotional intelligence factored into Morey’s team-building algorithm.

“Daryl drafted me,” McCain said, “so he understood some part of it, for sure.”

Morey’s reputation was built on an affinity for analytics, an adoration for small ball and a radical diet of 3s. But in the postseason, when team identities teeter, moxie prevails. No formula or spreadsheet measures guts.

Morey could not calculate that McCain would hurtle toward Wembanyama in a series that demands nerve. He could not project that McCain would chuck 21 shots in a Western Conference finals game and not flinch. He could not chart that McCain would ooze such confidence that at the end of Game 2, he pleaded for the ball from the MVP at the top of the arc inside the final minute. Patience and the stage to display self-belief were what this rose needed.

The soil feeds the seed.

“When I first came and had a meeting with Sam, we talked all about that,” McCain said. “… Being able to ask him questions, a mastermind at what he does, it’s awesome. He talks a lot about ‘one drop in the bucket each day.’ And being in process, that’s all that matters. You cannot fail if you’re in process, because you’re never at the end.”

Spring is almost summer. McCain has never played basketball so deep into the calendar, when these moments make legacies. From late May to mid June. When roses bloom.