Ranking all of Steph’s teammates: #36 — Ronny Turiaf

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.

#36 — Ronny Turiaf

Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Games: 42 (T-60th out of 106)
Points per game: 4.9 (61st out of 106)
Rebounds per game: 4.5 (T-26th out of 106)
Assists per game: 2.1 (T-26th out of 106)

I always adored watching Ronny Turiaf. Some of it was the energy and charisma, which he brought just as much when on the bench as on the floor. Some of was the non-stop hustle, regardless of the score or the standings. And much of it was his relentless desire to see if he could knee himself in the chin every time he dunked.

It’s easy to reduce Turiaf to a role player on a bad Warriors team, but he played pretty well in Golden State. Much of that was in 2008-09, before Steph Curry arrived, but he also had quite an impact during Curry’s rookie season.

Turiaf was a very good defensive center, who knew how to leverage his large frame, and who had borderline impeccable timing. We’re not counting his first year with the Dubs in these rankings, but it’s still worth pointing out that he lead the entire league in block rate that year. That was a sign of what he did manning the middle.

He won’t win any awards for offense, but he knew his role, and rarely ever took bad shots. He was also a very underrated passer, and the fact that he had nearly two assists for every turnover, despite being a center, is rather remarkable.

Turiaf won’t be remembered the same way that high-energy bench players who came to the Warriors during their championship seasons are, but he was a fun, lovable, and good Warrior.