The 5 Worst NBA teams of All-Time
Rejected: The NBA’s Least Successful Teams Ever
The 04-05 Hawks were terrible.
Many formidable teams and thousands of legendary players have gone through the 75-year history of the NBA.
Of course, the championship teams are remembered the most, as winners always dictate trends.
Because of these teams, a revolution happens and elements that may have been an important part of basketball until that moment cease to be important anymore.
The best example of this is the Golden State Warriors team, with its fast pace of play, a lot of three-point shooting and a “low-five” in which there was no classic centre.
This game system is copied by almost everyone today. Basketball play changed forever because of this one championship team.
In this article, however, we’re not talking about the best NBA teams of all-time or teams that changed the game of basketball.
We’re going to talk about those who left a negative impression on the league, including plenty of teams that were simply bad.
The list could be longer, but we will single out just 5 teams that were once so bad they broke numerous negative records.
This is the story of teams that were so bad, their fans put cardboard bags over their heads to avoid watching their team suffer. At least, that was the case in New Jersey!
Below, find out about the 5 worst NBA teams of all-time.
5. Vancouver Grizzlies 1995/96
This list begins with the Vancouver Grizzlies team from the 1995/1996 season, the same season in which the Chicago Bulls achieved 72 wins and reached their 4th title.
At that time, Vancouver was a new franchise that came from the expansion draft and, according to announcements from the Grizzlies, the team had decent ambitions for the 1995/96 season.
Their start wasn't bad. They won the first 2 games, but this was more or less the only games they would win that season.
A streak of 19 consecutive losses followed, and later they set a record with 23 consecutive losing games.
The score at the end of the season was a devastating 15-67.
The best players of this team were Greg Anthony, who played the best season of his career in Vancouver, and the popular "Big Country" Bryant Reeves, as well as the veteran and former member of the Los Angeles Lakers, Byron Scott.
The rest of the team was mostly made up of players who did not leave a particularly good impression in the NBA.
4. Atlanta Hawks 2004/05
Basketball in Atlanta has never been a very popular sport. However, every true basketball fan in the city of Coca-Cola gets goosebumps at the memory of the 2004/2005 season.
The Atlanta Hawks went on to an impressive 13-game winning streak that season, but it wasn't just the 13-69 record at the end of the season that was devastating.
A bunch of seasoned basketball veterans, undisciplined young players and a coach that had no control over the team were the main ingredients in this greasy and salty stew called the Atlanta Hawks.
It is interesting that the members of this merry group were Obina Ekezie, former centre for Crvena Zvezda, as well as Predrag Drobnjak, former Partizan basketball player and national team member.
One of the employees of the franchise perhaps gave the best description of that Hawks season "Here there is no such thing as a victory, here you only have that feeling of defeat.”
Pretty depressing, isn't it?
3. New Jersey Nets 2009/10
The New Jersey Nets team from the 2009/2010 season are one of the worst NBA teams of all-time.
The Nets from New Jersey changed coach 3 times that season and started the season with 18 consecutive defeats. This had never happened to anyone before.
This losing streak was only broken when they won against the Charlotte Bobcats.
Throughout the season, they were 3-40 and 4-48, while the final score was 12-70.
The crowd at Izod Center put cardboard bags over their heads to avoid watching their team's agony!
The Nets also had the lowest attendance of all teams in the league that season. The only 2 players worth mentioning from this team are Devin Harris and centre Brook Lopez.
The team members included the powerful Mexican Eduardo Najera, the master of playing against Yi Jianlian, as well as "Batman" Tony Batie.
Despite their failings, this team managed to make the NBA G League.
2. Dallas Mavericks 1992/93
This Dallas season can be described by Murphy's Law: "If anything can go wrong, it will."
Ahead of the 1992/1993 season, Dallas were without Roy Tarpley, who served a suspension due to alcohol problems.
The Texas franchise brought in All-Star Fat Lever from Denver, but Lever missed the entire season due to a knee injury.
Rolando Blackman, the team's best scorer a few years prior, decided to leave the New York Knicks that season.
Rookie Jim Jackson, who was supposed to be the new face of the franchise, played only 28 games in that painful season.
The Mavs were left to play with players like Randy White, Doug Smith, Dexter Cambridge and Walter Bond. Even hardcore NBA fans probably won’t remember these basketball players.
This team was terrible, the worst defense and worst offense in the league.
They were a classic bucket for shooting and fixing the points difference. Out of their first 60 games, they won only 4. At the end of the season, they were 11-71.
1. Charlotte Bobcats 2011/12
We have reached the worst NBA team of all-time!
Hopefully, we will never have to watch a team like this again. Needless to say, they were the worst in many ways: the worst defense, the worst offense and the least points average.
This team lost by an average of 14 points and they lost 23 consecutive matches.
They started the season by beating Milwaukee and thoroughly torturing the never-stronger Miami. After that, however, a nightmare began that lasted until the end of the season.
The game was dragged by rookie Kemba Walker and Bismack Biyombo, while most of the rest of the team probably wouldn't even be able to play in the Fiba Champions League at that point.
The only good thing was that the season was shortened to 66 games due to the NBA lockout.
The Bobcats were 7-59 at the end of the season, who knows what would have happened if the season had been complete!
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