Jared McCain Is Nails.
You may have noticed: Jared McCain never turns down a shot, and his shot seemingly always goes in. He’s been lights out as a Thunder, draining 40.2% of his threes while putting up 9.3 3PA per-36. That’s a better clip than he flashed before his Rookie of the Year campaign was cut short in Philly last season. Every McCain release generates the same confidence in Thunder fans he exudes while dancing in each new TikTok post1.
McCain has been perfect in the clutch, and his big shots have often come in pivotal moments while OKC survives with SGA on the bench. The most common lineups featuring McCain have been net positive with plus offense and three-point shooting.
His shot chart looks designed to guide the platonic outside shooter. McCain thrives behind the line, and dries up once he steps just inside it. He’s also nails on floaters and jumpers from just outside the paint, but struggles to finish when he wins a drive all the way to the cup.
When McCain rises up, Thunder fans can count on the shot going down.
Daily Thunder
Signals in the Noise: Team-Wide Shooting Hope
You may have also noticed that the Thunder on the whole have been shooting quite poorly of late. Turns out, all of those JoeCain three-point flurries haven't outweighed the hideous quarters, ugly halves, and entire games in which OKC has gone cold. It's all added up to perfectly league average (36%) shooting from deep since McCain Day (heretofore called “Jared McCain’s trade acquisition by the Oklahoma City Thunder”).
On the other hand, there is some intriguing movement among who is taking OKC’s shot, regardless of how many are falling each game.
In the last three seasons, whether OKC is truly a reliable shooting team has been a legitimate question. Back in 2023-24, there was more and more ball movement spun up to find the best shot on the court, and many of us winced as Chet Holmgren, and Jalen Williams, and yes, even Aaron Wiggins, passed up good shots hunting for even better looks. All those extra pumpfakes and skip passes and drive-kicks led to…a billion wide open looks and the league's best shooting percentage from deep.
Yelling at Chet on TV to just shoot that feels even sillier when Lu Dort immediately guides another moonball home for the league’s premier shooting team. I guess he should listen to the coaches and shot quality statistics, not the fans in that scenario. But we stubbornly remained worried in the playoffs. Could we really count on the best shots falling when they weren’t taken by the most polished shooters?
In two straight playoffs, our nightmares came true. In 2024, the ball increasingly found its way to Dort, Josh Giddey, or Chet on the perimeter, none of whom splashed home enough shots to force the opponent out of space-jamming the rest of the halfcourt. The Thunder were bounced in the second round while Giddey was benched.
In 2025, the problem got worse: only three of the Thunder’s top seven three-point shooters by volume or percentage made within 6% of their regular season average in the playoffs. And those who did replicate their regular season accuracy combined to take nearly seven fewer attempts per game in the postseason: Wiggins, Isaiah Joe, and Jaylin Williams all played reduced roles as the defensive intensity ratcheted up. Finally, Jalen Williams’ wrist was badly in need of repair, and Shai entered the playoffs after peaking in productivity from behind the arc during the season. In other words, there was hardly anywhere to trend but down. But despite OKC’s three-point shooting crumbling, they still won the championship.
For the second straight season, the 2025-26 Thunder has become less reliant on three-point shots while still winning 80% of its games.
OKC’s role players will surely wax and wane in both playing time and effectiveness during the postseason, but this time around McCain adds another potential waxer to the fold. Can other teams play all of McCain, Joe, J-Will, and Wiggins off the floor before they catch fire? Good luck trying. What’s more: the lower volume from Shai, Chet, and JDub2 this regular season gives them more room to expand their shooting responsibilities as the going gets tough.
JoeCain Is Still Lethal
McCain joined the jolly, psycho-competitors in Oklahoma City with a smile on his face and a reputation for dancing, shooting, and getting blown by. Most of that has checked out, but his defensive weaknesses were exaggerated. I thought McCain (alongside Nikola Topic) could only audition for a Ajay Mitchell-sized playmaker role when the top three playmakers were out of the lineup. I was wrong. A bigger spot in the pecking order can be had at this stage in McCain’s development and OKC’s roster maturity.
McCain is third in usage on the team, running with the opportunity to fill in and fill up the box score while Mitchell, JDub, and even Shai were out with injury. A space and rhythm wizard, McCain is always moving, always in the direction of space the defense is warping to allow. Combined with the Guard Feeding King Isaiah Hartenstein, McCain spins defenders into knots. Since McCain Day, OKC has three of the top 15 players in threes made per possession and per minute. Before that, they only had one such player in the top 50 leaguewide.
Joe also works tirelessly off-ball, participating as a screener, cutter, decoy, and even as a two-man initiator or off-the-dribble creator against the right matchup. And when Hartenstein gets to play with JoeCain together, Daily Thunder podcaster Ryan Woods aptly described the viewing experience like watching planets orbiting the sun. To defenders, it probably feels more like getting sucked into a black hole.
McCain's added value on offense has been stark, while his intelligence and craft soften his limitations on defense. For example, McCain's nose for space persists after the shot, and OKC rebounds better on both ends when the guard is buzzing around in the moments before hustling back to position.
Nails in the Playoffs?
Pinch yourself: the Thunder have two deadeye shooters in reserve with more to offer than some extra gravity in the corner while trying to survive on defense.
McCain’s minutes have dipped, along with Joe’s, since the other guards returned to the active roster. And while Joe has had more success as a microwave shooter in fewer minutes since JDub’s return (48.6% 3P, including a 6-8 heater in 13 minutes against the Lakers), McCain is capable of providing more than a few quick shots off the bench.
The Thunder are placing more sophisticated bets in fidelity to ancient common wisdom: who should you count on to get hot in the playoffs? Remember the trends from prior postseasons, when the most optimal players took fewer and fewer of the most high value shots as OKC faced postseason defensive schemes. OKC fans will be forgiven for thinking players only shoot worse in the postseason, but the reverse can happen, too. Mixed in with the otherwise harrowing data, role players like Alex Caruso and J-Will have shown out in the playoffs. Mark Daigneault, an aggressive mix-and-matcher who was undaunted from playing a rookie 12 minutes in Game 6 of the Finals, will have a space-maxing player at the ready if the math starts to collapse under the weight of Dort three-pointers and J-Will/Wiggins defensive targeting.
When Jared McCain’s number is called, he’ll be Nails.
Footnotes
- McCain is a classic example of my #1 rule for dancing: 90% of dancing is in the face.
- Jalen's shooting trends have been smooth as sandpaper since injuring his wrist. He now says it feels good, but is still taking about half as many three-point attempts per minute compared to last year. I'd rather Williams shoot 30% on 2.4 attempts (this season) than 30% on 5 attempts (last postseason), but whether the first string can generate enough space with all of Dub, Dort and iHart on the court is my biggest concern for the 2026 playoffs. Thus far, the size Williams brings back to the Thunder has been more of a boon than the sub-optimal shooting distance has been a liability:
