Although his role has been that of a deep bench player for the most part, Toronto Raptors wing Patrick McCaw has been a reigning NBA champion for quite a long stretch now – 1,148 days, to be exact.
That’s three years, one month and 25 days straight that McCaw has been a champion, dating back to his stint with the Golden State Warriors and stretching through until now, his time with the Toronto Raptors.
McCaw’s championship reign has been so lengthy, in fact, that it’s reaching historical proportions. It’s actually the second-longest consecutive stretch that one player has been a champion in NBA history since the Boston Celtics dynasty of the 1960s.
The only one who has been a champion longer than McCaw since then was, coincidentally enough, the swingman’s head coach in Golden State, Steve Kerr, who was part of the second Chicago Bulls three-peat and the San Antonio Spurs title run of 1998-99, making him the only non-Celtic in league history to win four championships in a row.
Of course, the NBA’s coronavirus-related stop in action this season has helped McCaw’s streak extend a little longer than it might have, considering this campaign should have been over by June and we’re now in August with a champion not even close to being decided yet.
Even so, with the Raptors being legitimate title contenders this season, who knows? Maybe McCaw’s championship reign is extended even longer.
For the record, McCaw’s best Finals performance came in Game 5 of the 2017 championship series, his rookie season, when the UNLV product scored six points and secured three rebounds against the Cleveland Cavaliers in a 129-120 win for the Warriors.
Alberto de Roa contributed research to this article