Ranking all of Steph’s teammates: #91 — Hilton Armstrong

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.

#91 — Hilton Armstrong

Photo by Noah Graham/NBAE via Getty Images

Games: 15 (83rd out of 106)
Points per game: 1.7 (T-97th out of 106)
Rebounds per game: 3.1 (T-48th out of 106)
Assists per game: 0.3 (T-94th out of 106)

There’s a little bit of a trend in this series of articles. At the back of the rankings we encounter a lot of players who struggled with other teams, but showed enough glimpses to make you think maybe one day they’d be good.

Then they get to the Warriors, and we all find out that, no, being in a functional organization isn’t enough. They’re just not good.

And then their career is over.

Such was the case with Hilton Armstrong. He was a lottery pick in 2006, and played 277 games for five teams over five years. He flashed potential, especially early on — he averaged 10.1 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game in his first three seasons — but that slowly evaporated.

As he saw his NBA minutes dry up, he left for Europe, and spent two years there. He returned for the 2013-14 season, and signed with the Santa Cruz Warriors, where he performed well enough to earn a contract with Golden State.

Golden State played him for 15 games, plus another 7 in the playoffs, and that was the last the league saw of him (he’s been playing overseas ever since).

His offense wasn’t good. His defense wasn’t good enough to make up for his not-good offense. And he seemed a bit overmatched.

But on the bright side, he is responsible for one of the best-named YouTube videos of all time: Hilton Armstrong and Ognjen Kuzmic Golden State Warriors Highlights. Oh yes. What we’ve all been waiting for. Grab your popcorn, folks.

Enjoy the highlight package of the 91st and 98th best Warriors teammates in Steph Curry’s career.