Philadelphia 76ers rookie Jared McCain took a scary fall on Wednesday night and was taken to the hospital after having difficulty breathing, according to Sixers coach Nick Nurse.
It happened with four minutes remaining in Philly’s 117-95 preseason victory over the Brooklyn Nets. McCain, who was taken by the Sixers with the 16th overall pick in June, was attempting to rebound his own miss, but as he was airborne his weight got too far behind him and he went over backward, crashing against the floor in an extremely compromised position.
You can see after the fall that the 20-year-old McCain was in a great deal of discomfort. He was holding his chest as he rolled over and appeared to be struggling to breathe. Here’s a closer look at the fall.
McCain remained down for several minutes before being helped off the floor. After the game, the Sixers said he was being evaluated by the team’s medical staff, including for a concussion.
“It was rough,” Nurse said. “He’s going to the hospital to get checked out. Obviously he was having some trouble breathing, thought maybe he got the wind knocked out of him. But not sure there. [I’ve] never quite seen [a fall] like that one before, so let’s hope he’s okay, and we’ll see what the report is from the hospital.”
Any time anyone sees a player go down like this and then start to have trouble breathing, some pretty scary images are going to flash before your eyes. McCain’s situation certainly doesn’t appear to be life-threatening, and we’ll hope that the trip to the hospital is more of a precautionary measure.
Until then, we’ll all be hoping for the best for McCain. We will continue to update this story as more information becomes available.
