Worst Starter No. 8 – Patrick McCaw
10 players in NBA history have won three-straight titles to start their careers. Whitey Skogg did so with the Minneapolis Lakers. Five players did it with the Bill Russell-era Boston Celtics: K.C. Jones, Gene Guarilia, Tom Sanders, John Havlicek and Larry Siegfried. Two players, Scott Williams and Jason Caffey, won with the Chicago Bulls in the 1990s. Devean George started his career with the threepeat Los Angeles Lakers from 1999-2002.
What do all of those players have in common? They played for one team to start their careers. Patrick McCaw made history when he became the first player to win three-straight titles to start his career with two different teams. He started with the Warriors for two championships, then won another against the Warriors with the Toronto Raptors in 2019.
Unfortunately for McCaw, those rings have to last him because he won’t be winning another; he’s already out of the league. There was plenty of hype around McCaw as a versatile two-way wing who was going to glue lineups together, but instead, he just hung around as a role player who never took a step forward.
The Warriors gave him plenty of chances, including 30 starts. He shot 28.8 from deep in those games, with a -88 cumulative on-off and a -3.0 Box Plus-Minus. His defensive playmaking was special and a part of what kept him on the court, but he was ultimately such a poor offensive player that it wasn’t worth it to keep handing him minutes.