#7. Terry Teagle
Terry Teagle is best known for his time in the blue and gold in the second half of the 1980s. The Warriors signed Teagle late in the 1984-85 regular season and inserted him into the lineup immediately.
In his first full first season with the squad in 1985-86, Teagle averaged 14.2 points per game and had the best season of his career at the time.
Over the next four seasons, Teagle mainly served as the sixth man. Though the majority of the Warriors’ teams in the latter half of the ‘80s finished below .500, Teagle finished top five in scoring on the team in three out of his five full seasons.
And despite the team’s struggles, in 1987 and in 1989, Golden State beat the Utah Jazz, an organization led by young stars Karl Malone and John Stockton in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs. In the 3-2, 3-0 series wins, Teagle scored 14.8 points per game in the 1987 series and 19.3 points per game in the 1989 series with limited minutes.
Though he started just over a third of his games with the Warriors, he appeared in all 82 games in three separate seasons: 1985-86, 1986-87, and 1989-90. Rarely injured, Teagle was a reliable man off the bench poised to score double-digit figures on any given night.
In the five-plus seasons he spent in the Bay Area, Teagle averaged 13.7 points, 1.4 assists and 3.1 rebounds.
He averaged double-digit points in every one of his five full seasons with the Warriors, all the while getting paid less than half a million dollars a year. Even with inflation rates, the Warriors paid for five years of Teagle for the equivalent of $3.5 million in today’s money, or just $700,000 per year.
Though he came off the bench for the majority of his time in Golden State on half-decent teams, the Warriors got a reliable, consistent player for a half-decade and paid almost nothing.