Ranking all of Steph’s teammates: #99 — MarShon Brooks

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 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.

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

#99 — MarShon Brooks

Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Games: 7 (T-93rd out of 106)
Points per game: 1.9 (96th out of 106)
Rebounds per game: 0.7 (T-100th out of 106)
Assists per game: 0.0 (T-102nd out of 106)

Look, I’m not going to pretend to be some kind of basketball genius. I won’t front and act like I know how the game works beyond “throw ball at hoop, hope it goes in, shimmy if it does.”

But I do know two fundamental rules about this silly sport that we miss so dearly:

1. If you play seven games as a guard, you should register at least one assist.
2. If you play seven games as a shooting guard, you should make at least one three-pointer.

MarShon Brooks did none of those things during his seven-game run as Steph Curry’s backcourt partner in 2013-14.

Brooks came to the Warriors in a three-team trade, though admittedly he was a bit of an afterthought in it. Golden State sent Toney Douglas to the Miami Heat, who sent Joel Anthony to the Boston Celtics, who sent Brooks and Jordan Crawford to the Warriors.

At the time, Brooks was two-and-a-half years removed from being the 25th overall pick in the 2011 NBA Draft, and he had a nice rookie campaign with the then-New Jersey Nets, where he averaged 12.6 points and 2.3 assists per game.

But his career stagnated in 2013-14, with the Warriors being the second of three teams he would play for in that season, with each stop being a struggle.

Just as Brooks arrived via trade, so too did he depart via trade. Barely a month after trading for him, the Warriors sent Brooks — and Kent Bazemore — to the Los Angeles Lakers for Steve Blake. In his first game with the Lakers, Brooks surpassed his point total for his entire Warriors tenure. It didn’t open up any NBA doors for him, however, as he would spend the next three seasons playing in Italy and China.

For a while, being Steph Curry’s 99th-best teammate might have been the most notable thing about Brooks’ career. But then the 2018-19 season happened, and with it one of the funnier stories in modern NBA history.

Brooks was playing for the Memphis Grizzlies, who were involved in a three-team trade talk with the Washington Wizards and Phoenix Suns.

The deal was agreed upon to the point of being reported on social media, and then the hilarious dominoes fell. According to a Zach Lowe report, Phoenix and Memphis had not communicated directly, but rather just through Washington. As a result, the Grizzlies were preparing to ship out MarShon Brooks — then a 29-year old journeyman — while the Suns believed they were receiving Dillon Brooks, a 22-year old prospect with a bright future (and way too big of a piece for Phoenix to have any reason to think would be included).

Ultimately, the trade fell apart in a comedic and public manner. And Brooks — who returned to China for the 2019-20 season — will likely always be best remembered for his inadvertent role in it.

Being Steph Curry’s 99th-best teammate will have to come in second.