OAKLAND, CALIF.—These have been trying and emotional times for Patrick McCaw, periods of great heartbreak mixed with periods of great joy, and the 23-year-old Raptors swingman deals with it the best he can.

Here he is, in his third straight NBA Finals at a tender age, this time wearing a Raptors jersey after two seasons with the Golden State Warriors. It’s a strange and unique circumstance of which he is rightfully proud.

But he is also carrying around the pain of the recent loss of a sibling, and it’s put the world in great context.

“You grow as a person and a man,” he said of his life experience over the last three weeks. “This life, you can’t take anything for granted. It puts everything in perspective.

“It’s so much bigger than just basketball and everything else.”

McCaw’s older brother Jeffrey died just before the Eastern Conference final — “suddenly” is the only way McCaw would describe the death — and he was away from the Raptors for the first five games against the Milwaukee Bucks.

“It’s been definitely an important life experience for me to learn and grow at a young age,” he said. “It’s happening now, so I can understand and really appreciate everything I have.”

McCaw rejoined the Raptors for the final game against the Bucks and is back now for the NBA Finals. He hit a huge three-pointer at a vital moment of Toronto’s Game 1 win, but did not play in Game 2.

He’s got the attributes that would seem to make him an important piece for the Raptors: speed and quickness and length, along with a familiarity with the Warriors from having spent two seasons with Golden State.

Whether coach Nick Nurse plays him much in the coming games may depend on how Norman Powell does. Nurse likes to give Powell a chance early in games, but if Powell isn’t fully engaged then McCaw is the next man up. And given his experience, his teammates are quite fine with him having an enhanced role.

“Pat is a champion,” point guard Kyle Lowry said. “I knew he would be able to step up to any task that he had at hand … He wasn’t around for personal reasons, but he’s back and I would never doubt him a moment stepping on that floor.

“If he gets an opportunity to play, he’s going to help us always.”

The sudden death of his brother was by far the worst thing that’s happened to McCaw in what has been a trying, and somewhat confusing, NBA season for the native of St. Louis.

He was back in Oracle Arena for Game 3 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night, for the first time since he played for the champion Warriors last June.

In the intervening 12 months he turned down a one-year, $1.7-million qualifying offer (all dollars U.S.) as a restricted free agent from Golden State last summer, declined a two-year, $5.2-million offer and languished unemployed until he signed a non-guaranteed two-year deal worth $6 million with the Cleveland Cavaliers in December, which the Warriors declined to match.

He spent a week with the Cavs before being waived, and signed with Toronto in early January on a deal that will expire in July.

It was in many ways a confounding decision for a promising young player, one that McCaw has said was just a “personal” choice.

“That truly was it,” he said before the Finals began. “It wasn’t not getting along with teammates or not liking Oakland. It was nothing negative toward the Warriors.

“It was all a personal thing for me … I had to go through it to learn, to grow. It’s been great for me. I feel totally different about my approach to the business side and the basketball side.”

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McCaw wasn’t sure about the welcome he’d get from the typically raucous fans at Oracle, but he knew what the atmosphere would be like.

The Warriors get unparalleled support at home, and with Wednesday’s game the first at Oracle since Game 2 of the Western Conference final on May 16, the fans were primed to be louder than usual. It’s the last series in the arena before Golden State opens its new venue in San Francisco this fall.

“It’s not the prettiest spot, but I think the people who fill it up make it what it is, the fans that come out each and every game,” McCaw said. “The energy they bring is the reason that’s the way that it is. Not the fanciest arena, but you know when you come to a game at Oracle you’re going to get maximum energy every night.”