76ers continue to collect former Warriors with Patrick McCaw signing

Days after nabbing Mac McClung for their G League team, Philadelphia added a three-time NBA champion

Days after picking up Summer League folk hero and Forever Warrior Mac McClung, the Philadelphia 76ers shopped in the Golden State Warriors section of the training camp discount bin again, signing - and waiving - former Warriors swingman Patrick McCaw.

Like McClung, McCaw has already been waived by the 76ers, who are targeting him for their G League affiliate, the Delaware Blue Coats. Teams have to waive players after signing them to training camp deals before adding them to their G League rosters, so the waiving is a technicality - not a brief opportunity for the Warriors to swoop in and get McClung back, no matter how much fans might want that.

McCaw spent last season with the Blue Coats, playing in 17 regular-season games and five playoff games, averaging 6.1 points, 2.1 assists, and 1.3 steals in 25.6 minutes per game. He hasn’t played in the NBA since logging 33 minutes on the court in five games for the 2020-21 Toronto Raptors.

That’s the second ex-Warrior in a week for Philadelphia, who also has Danuel House Jr., who was a Warrior for three glorious weeks in the 2018-19 preseason - and likely got released because the team was waiting for McCaw to come back. Harvesting ex-Warriors? Who do the Sixers think they are - the Los Angeles Lakers?

The Warriors spent $2.4 million to buy the No. 38 pick in the 2016 draft from the Milwaukee Bucks, and used it to select McCaw. He started 30 games in his first two seasons with the Dubs, and they won championships in each year. McCaw played so well, in fact, that many people thought he’d replace Andre Iguodala when Iguodala became a free agent that summer - including Iguodala himself.

“t can be hard for a guy like me who basically sees my replacement,” Iguodala said at the Warriors’ championship parade in 2017. “You want to hold on and get your extra years and extra money. But I had some great veterans. You know, Aaron McKie and Kevin Ollie, who brought me up the right way. So it’s only right I gave it back. Patrick McCaw is next. … You’re going to be a great player for a long time and I appreciate you, young fella.”

Andre being Andre, he also called McCaw a “knucklehead.”

But McCaw began to sour on the Warriors after his rookie season, when the team signed Nick Young to be the backup shooting guard. Then they re-signed Iguodala to a three-year deal. When Young showed up at camp out of shape, McCaw resented that he still had to compete for his minutes, which were inconsistent all year. Of course, part of that was he shot under 24% from three-point range. Then he had a scary injury late in the season when Vince Carter undercut him near the basket during a game with the Sacramento Kings.

McCaw was out until the end of of the conference finals, before playing limited minutes in the Warriors’ sweep of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2018.

That summer, the Warriors extended a qualifying offer to McCaw, and well, he ghosted them. He held out and didn’t communicate with the team, waiting the Warriors out until he convinced Cleveland to give him a big-money-on-paper non-guaranteed deal in December, then release him, so he could become an unrestricted free agent. He played 68 games for the Raptors in three seasons before they released him in April of 2021.

It’s still not completely clear what went wrong with McCaw and the Warriors, who still had affection for McCaw even when he left. He would have had ample playing time on the 2018-19 team, especially after Kevin Durant went down in the playoffs. But Bob Myers only had positive things to say about McCaw: “We appreciate the time he spent with our organization. He was a good teammate and helped us toward our goal while he was here.”

Now he’s likely to start at small forward for the Blue Coats, and we have one piece of advice for McCaw, who is still just 26 years old: Start practicing throwing lobs to McClung. Trust us.