YouTube Gold: McCain Rising

What a night by the rookie from Duke

Saccharine Risacher. Alex Sarr. Reed Sheppard. Stephon Castle. Ron Holland. Tidjane Salaun. Donovan Clingan. Rob Dillingham. Zach Edel. Cody Williams Matas Buzelis. Nikola Topic. Devin Carter. Bub Carrington. Kel’el Ware.

Those are the 16 players who were taken ahead of Duke’s Jared McCain in this summer's NBA Draft. The season is young, but how many of those rookies have outperformed him so far?

Not many and perhaps no one.

McCain has improved incredibly fast. In his last three games, he’s scored 23, 27 and, against Cleveland last night, his first career double-double with 34 points and 10 assists.

And that came, for the first time, as a starter.

We saw real promise in McCain at Duke obviously: he’s just a baller. Now he’s just growing by leaps and bounds.

And impressively for a rookie, his teammates are starting to look for him.

If he keeps this up, he’s gunning (pun intended) for the All-Rookie team and possibly, dare we say it, Rookie of the Year.