Ranking all of Steph’s teammates: #37 — Quinn Cook

During his time with the Golden State Warriors, Steph Curry has had 106 teammates who have appeared in at least one game. Some played in exactly one game, while others played in hundreds. Some never actually played in a game that Curry was active for, while others formed historically great partnerships with him.

And I’m ranking all 106 of them before a new season starts and he adds to the tally. Better get a move on.

Players are ranked — and stats are shown — based only on their time as Curry’s teammate. How good/bad they were in other organizations doesn’t matter. How good/bad they were on pre-2009-10 Warriors teams doesn’t matter.

#37 — Quinn Cook

Photo by Nathaniel S. Butler/NBAE via Getty Images

Games: 107 (T-24th out of 106)
Points per game: 7.7 (T-37th out of 106)
Rebounds per game: 2.2 (T-66th out of 106)
Assists per game: 1.9 (T-33rd out of 106)

Quinn Cook, more than perhaps anyone on this list, gets bumped up due to things beyond his performance on the basketball court.

While a lot of Warriors fans were sad to see Cook leave the Dubs, the reality is that he never graded out as a very good player. The per game stats were average, and the advanced metrics were (and still are) very grim. It’s for those reasons that I didn’t think the Warriors should pursue a Cook reunion this offseason, and likely for those reasons why the Warriors opted for Brad Wanamaker when Cook was seemingly available.

But it doesn’t matter. His story and impact on the Warriors was huge.

The Dubs signed Cook to a two-way contract in 2017-18, when he was a second year player with only 14 career games under his belt. The goal was for Cook to just hang out with the Santa Cruz Warriors, and be the emergency option if something happened.

Something happened.

Steph Curry got injured, and suddenly Cook started to spend more and more time with the NBA roster. He earned the trust of teammates and coaches alike, to the point where he started 18 of the 33 games he appeared in. He didn’t fill Curry’s shoes — no one can — but he did the best that anyone could have hoped for, even hitting on a Curry-esque 44.2% of his shots from beyond the arc.

As the playoffs neared, many wondered what would happen with Cook. He’d become an integral part of the roster — even when Curry was healthy — but two-way contracts aren’t allowed on postseason rosters.

So the Warriors cut Omri Casspi and promoted Cook to an NBA contract, reportedly at the urging of many of the team’s players.

That tells you all you need to know.

There’s no way to sugarcoat the bad elements of Cook’s game. He was a very poor defender, and wasn’t much of a playmaker, even though he was a point guard. Despite playing alongside many historically great offensive options, Cook averaged just 4.1 assists per 36 minutes during his two-year tenure with the Dubs.

But he shot the heck out of the basketball (41.8% from three, 57.5% true-shooting percentage), and stepped up when the Warriors needed him most.

I haven’t spent much time in the Warriors locker room, especially compared to other people who write about Golden State. But in the short time I have spent in it, it was abundantly clear that Cook was respected by everyone in the organization, and considered a key part of the team.