Ranking all of Steph’s teammates: #102 — Malcolm Thomas

On June 25, 2009, the Golden State Warriors drafted Steph Curry. Ten years and 16 days later, the Oklahoma City Thunder traded Russell Westbrook to the Houston Rockets. With that move, Curry moved to second in the NBA for longest tenure with his current team. The only player he sits behind is Udonis Haslem, though that feels like a technicality. At this point, Haslem is essentially an assistant coach for the Miami Heat, having appeared in just 43 games and played fewer than 300 minutes over the last four seasons combined.

During his time in the Bay Area, 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, one a day, over the course of three months.

Players are ranked — and stats are shown — based only on their time as Curry’s teammates. 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.

To see all of the rankings thus far, you can click on the “Ranking Steph’s teammates” tag at the top of the article.

#102 — Malcolm Thomas

Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Games: 5 (97th out of 106)
Points per game: 0.6 (103rd out of 106)
Rebounds per game: 1.0 (T-93rd out of 106)
Assists per game: 0.4 (T-84th out of 106)

Malcolm Thomas was 6’9, which was perhaps the only nice thing about his time on the court with the Warriors.

His averages with Golden State — 0.6 points, 1.0 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.0 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game — aren’t much worse than his career averages of 1.9 points, 2.4 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.2 steals, and 0.2 blocks per game, so it’s not like the Warriors got a small dose of him before he developed into a high quality NBA player.

He was a short-lived journeyman, playing for five NBA teams, but topping out at 17 games with the Philadelphia 76ers. He bounced around teams for four years, before spending a little bit of time in the D-League, and then heading off to Europe, where he still plays.

His stint in the Bay Area was his second team and his second year in the league. He had started the season in Europe, then moved to the D-League, and eventually signed a 10-day contract with Golden State. The contract came and went, and when it expired, so too did Thomas’ time with the Warriors.

I wish I had more to say about Malcolm Thomas, but the reality is, he came, he went, he inspired no one, and I entirely forgot about his existence until I started this series of articles. Even with this series to jog my memory, I’m not actually sure I remember him or if I’m just pretending I do.

So goes life when you’re on the fringe of the NBA. It’s a helluva lot further than I ever made it, I’ll give him that.

And it’s further than Dewayne Dedman, Keith Benson, Chris Boucher, or Earl Barron made it, at least with the Warriors. So you go, Malcolm.