Ranking all of Steph’s teammates: #26 — Kelenna Azubuike

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.

#26 — Kelenna Azubuike

Games: 9 (T-89th out of 106)
Points per game: 13.9 (12th out of 106)
Rebounds per game: 4.6 (T-21st out of 106)
Assists per game: 1.1 (T-53rd out of 106)

These days we think of Kelenna Azubuike less for playing with Steph Curry, and more for calling Curry’s game on the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcasts. But his time as a player is always worth revisiting.

Azubuike joined the Warriors as an undrafted rookie during the We Believe team, and immediately captivated the fanbase with his electric athleticism, his shocking strength, and his high-octane three-point shot.

I’ll be honest, I thought Azubuike would be a high-quality starter, who might even flirt with making the All-Star Game a few times in his career. Maybe that would have happened, but unfortunately injuries cut his career very short.

As such, he played just nine games in the Curry era. In the last year before Curry came aboard, Azubuike averaged 14.4 points and 5.0 rebounds per game, while shooting 44.8% from beyond the arc. He was poised to lead an incredibly fun offense next to Curry, and there was every reason to be super excited.

But he tore his patellar tendon just nine games into the season, and that was the last we saw of Azubuike on the Warriors (and nearly the last we saw of him in the NBA in general, as he played just three more games in his career, plus one in the postseason).

While we didn’t get to see him alongside Curry enough, Azubuike was still pretty darn good during that time. He rocked a Curry-esque 62.3% true-shooting percentage, and was legitimately an offensive force. The Warriors offense was substantially better with Azubuike on the court, and the advanced metrics were very high on his impact.

Good Warrior, on and off the court.

With fewer than 30 players left, I’m going to start listing the remaining names in alphabetic order, to help out with determining whether someone is properly ranked. Here they are:

Leandro Barbosa, Harrison Barnes, Jordan Bell, Andrew Bogut, Willie Cauley-Stein, Marquese Chriss, DeMarcus Cousins, Kevin Durant, Monta Ellis, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Damion Lee, David Lee, Jeremy Lin, Shaun Livingston, Kevon Looney, Corey Maggette, JaVale McGee, Zaza Pachulia, Eric Paschall, D’Angelo Russell, Klay Thompson, David West, Andrew Wiggins, Dorell Wright