Ranking all of Steph’s teammates: #15 — JaVale McGee

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.

#15 — JaVale McGee

Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images

Games: 142 (17th out of 106)
Points per game: 5.5 (T-53rd out of 106)
Rebounds per game: 2.9 (55th out of 106)
Assists per game: 0.4 (T-84th out of 106)

Consider this my public apology to JaVale McGee. When the Warriors signed him prior to the 2016-17 season, I didn’t think there was much value to be found. Perhaps I had spent too much time watching Shaqtin’ a Fool.

Wow was I wrong.

McGee was wildly effective, shooting 63.9% from the field, with a 64.1% true-shooting percentage in his two years by the Bay. He averaged 0.9 blocks per game, despite playing fewer than 10 minutes a night. Despite the rough reputation given to him by Shaq and others, he played smart and smooth. He avoided making big mistakes, and was a high-impact rim runner with strong defense in the interior.

His per game stats weren’t great, because his minutes were sparse. But his minutes weren’t sparse because the coaching staff didn’t trust him; they were sparse because the Warriors preferred to go with a center by committee approach, with quality centers Zaza Pachulia and David West also on the roster.

But he was good. Quite good. In the regular season and the postseason, where he won two rings, then left to join the Los Angeles Lakers, where he won another.

We love you, JaVale. Sorry you’re stuck on the Cavs.

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:

Harrison Barnes, Andrew Bogut, DeMarcus Cousins, Kevin Durant, Monta Ellis, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, David Lee, Shaun Livingston, Kevon Looney, D’Angelo Russell, Klay Thompson, David West, Andrew Wiggins