Ranking all of Steph’s teammates: #89 — Mickell Gladness

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.

#89 — Mickell Gladness

Photo by Rocky Widner/NBAE via Getty Images

Games: 18 (82nd out of 106)
Points per game: 3.0 (T-84th out of 106)
Rebounds per game: 2.6 (T-59th out of 106)
Assists per game: 0.2 (T-97th out of 106)

If you don’t remember Mickell Gladness, I don’t blame you. He spent only 18 games with the Golden State Warriors, and only played 8 other games in the NBA. His NBA career came and went, and if you blinked, you probably missed it.

Gladness went undrafted in 2008, went overseas, came back to the US and played in the D-League, had a cup of coffee with the Warriors and Miami Heat, went back to the D-League, and has been overseas since 2014.

His NBA story is almost surely complete, after 26 games, and a spot as Steph Curry’s 89th-best teammate.

I remember none of it, if we’re being honest, even though I’m pretty sure I watched every game of the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, when Gladness played. I remember that he played, but that’s about it. Let’s see if YouTube can help trigger my memory:

Well, that didn’t really do it, but oh well.

The Warriors gave Gladness a chance during a 23-43 season, letting him start in 7 of his 18 games. Even so, the 6-foot-11 power forward averaged just 3.0 points, 2.6 rebounds, 0.2 assists per game, though he did have 1.1 blocks per game.

His numbers didn’t quite tell the whole story though, as they were propped up by a 14-point, 9-rebound performance in the season finale, when the eliminated Warriors played the back of their bench against the San Antonio Spurs.

Still, while Gladness’ NBA tenure was extremely short, and rather unsuccessful, he has two good bragging points:

1. He may be the only player in the world to win a D-League championship and an Estonian League championship.
2. He’s the 89th-best teammate that Steph Curry has had.