The Worst NBA Records since 2015
How does this relate to tanking? It seems you can be a terrible team for years and still have no hope. Is incremental progress > Tanking ?
Source: https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/worst-nba-records-since-2015
magic are gonna catch them for 1st place, congrats Magic fans
Wizards might jump us first
i trust in dlo
About that
Fuck
There’s some luck involved. Pistons have the worst record but have only had one top 4 pick and picked 5th 3 times in that timeframe.
They did get a 1OA tho. That’s much more important than ‘top 4’. Ask me how I know.
Spoiler alert: that’s the difference between emeka okafor and dwight Howard. Mkg and Anthony Davis. Wemby and Brandon Miller. That’s just a handful of 2s from Charlotte off the top lol.
Being one pick behind Shaq was the OG “what could’ve been” lottery, but our history of #2’s behind Hall of Famers at #1 is rough. Hitting even one out of four probably lifts us from the discussion of the worst poverty franchise.
It’s crazy how many firsts overall Minnesota and Cleveland have had in a span when we’ve been consistently terrible and had zero.
It’s pretty fucked up. Until we hit #1 with some Mavs like odds I’m gonna be eternally jaded by the lottery. At least typing that out I’m not feeling THAT bad about BMilly. If he stays healthy I can’t really complain about that one.
And it was absolutely worth it. Cade alone makes it worth it. I’m so glad we blew it up and tanked. We wouldn’t be nowhere near the position we are now if we hadn’t. Tanking can work, and for some teams, it might be their only option.
Knicks had the 2nd and 1st worst record and fell to 4th and 3rd.
Funnily enough, both of those arguably worked out for the better.
5 worst teams are all east, and 7 of the 10.
too busy shovelling snow probably
And scraping windows Something your West Coast privilege knows nothing bout
I heard their NBA stars are paid to plant trees or something. Some shoveling there at least.
EC teams are nerfed playing WC. EC play at their own midnight-2am while you’re visiting, and go to sleep in early morning. Especially worse after u hit the clubs.
Or if they’re visiting you, they get to play at 4pm, which is peak hours of productivity in a human. And the visitors get to finish their day early, even after hitting clubs
Some of the best teams in the west play in the central time zone. The Lakers and the Warriors are the only 2 pacific time zone teams that have been really good during that span.
Edit: the Dame blazers were good too
the Pistons in 2023 went over 1/3rd of the season without winning a game.
They were 2-29 to start the season
Man, the guy who put that team together really should never get another job. CLEARLY, no one would be dumb enough to hire him again.
Had far more to do with the man coaching that team
Nah, with the exception of Holland Weaver drafted this core group of guys that’s leading the east and having the best Pistons season in 20 years. The story of how the 23-24 Pistons became the worst team of all time starts and ends with Monty
Troy has a great eye for talent. He drafts really well. However, I see no evidence he does literally anything else well. And you need more than draft picks to build a team. The moves on the margins matter. Troy refusing to put any shooting around those teams and signing a million centers also caused that disastrous season.
I see no evidence he does literally anything else well
Jerami Grant was (at the time) the most successful FA signing we’d had since McDyess. Trading Grant for a Blazers pick which he then flipped to get Duren was another great move. Trading Olynyk and Saben for Bojan was a significantly positive move. The contract he gave Isaiah Stewart also remains incredible value. He definitely did more than just pick well in the lottery even if he’s also responsible for some negative moves as well
Troy refusing to put any shooting around those teams and signing a million centers also caused that disastrous season
The team had shooting. They didn’t have a ton of it but they did have some and Monty both 1) refused to use it and 2) ran such a piss poor scheme that anyone who was a capable shooter was essentially ruined
The league should have a relegation system like in other sports or regions, because such bad performance needs to be punished one way or another not be rewarded with picks.
Ironically the flattened lottery odds that fucked us every year is a big reason why we continued to suck. We couldn’t get good talented players here.
Same except we kept getting the good picks and then picking bust after bust
If you ever think you are down bad, look at who the Hornets drafted in the 1st round from like 2005-2019 and tell me one guy absent Kemba Walker that you could build a winning roster around with him as a starter lol. Pretty sure the best player on that list not named Kemba Walker is Raymond Felton lol
Mismanagement needs to be punished not rewarded in my eyes. That is why i like european soccer format you mismanage? your players not performing? your coach sucks? You will be relegated and your players will earn less as there is now less money in the club, you will play a certain way and not play to get lottery tickets, which i think is probably the most pathetic thing i have seen in professional sports. There is more at stake for highschool teams than bottom nba teams.
That’s how college football works (basically) and it sucks unless you’re a fan of one of the ~10 teams who are actually good.
It makes the whole league better, as evidenced by the Pistons, who have now course-corrected and are legit title contenders.
Wizards didn’t move up in the lottery a single time during that stretch. The lottery is a huge reason for teams staying bad for 3-5+ years
Wizards have also had 3 number 1 picks that didn’t produce any 50 win seasons. I wouldn’t say it’s a huge reason. You take NYC for example, they rarely try to rebuild through the draft. Contrast that with the Kings that have had like 8 youth movements in the last decade and a half.
Only teams you can say are good that built through the draft are Nuggets who built with a second rounder, OKC, and T Wolves who built without a number 1 pick
I mean the teams that have won the lottery recently are the ones that immediately turned it around. Spurs, magic, wolves, etc. it took longer for Detroit because they kept falling to 5 and even now they’re carried by the guy they got the 1 year the lottery blessed them
Turned it around, but haven’t won it all. The last time a #1 pick won a championship with their original team was Kyrie (Lebron doesn’t count).
It’s hard to win it all. But many, many studies have shown that early draft picks (and especially the #1 overall pick) are highly correlated with future wins
Yes, you will get better, but the culture of your team being full of losers accepting losing will eventually hurt.
Playing meaningful games with young players is more important than tanking.
This is just not correct i’m sorry. SGA got traded to OKC who immediately tanked two seasons in a row (to get Chet) and then immediately turned it around to the best team in the league within 3 years. You can try to convince yourself as much as you want that tanking doesn’t work but the data disagrees and so do the best NBA front offices
But their best player is a #11 pick. Jokic was second round. Giannis was #15. Steph was #8. Lakers and Raptors did it through trades.
The only one was the Celtics and they didn’t tank for that long. They also traded out of the #1 pick.
Culture > Picks
I hear you, maybe I’m biased because my favorite team has never won the lotto ever.
pacers are a good example of an alternative, but even then it took 10+ years to build a contender and multiple steals in trades
Yeah, that’s a weird one Builds contender Star player asks out
Trades star player to start rebuild, Sabonis and Oldipo turn out too be too good and stop the normal tanking style rebuild. Oldipo asks out Never sees team healthy finally rebuilds again Haliburton ends up franchise cornerstone, gets mid draft picks.
We will see what’s next, they were a one year contender tho.
Kings just have terrible management and ownership. They had multiple chances (Luka, Hali) to build themselves out and failed outside of one season
Yeah, that and they always pick the guy right before a HOFer, the one time they draft what may be a HOFer, they trade him during his rookie contract 😂
Am I missing something? The T Wolves built with KAT and Ant, both #1 picks.
My B, I thought Ant was 3rd for some reason. U right.
Whoops, Detroit definitely hit lotto luck in that period
Bulls even made the playin on this list too
I wonder how that Detroit “draft, night daddy!” Doing rn. I bet he’s still excited
Hell yeah, only the 8th worst. LFG.
Thanks
Wolves and Knicks must have been really bad before 2021-ish
yep pre edwards and pre brunson/randle were dark days for those franchises
2018-19 specifically was a year I mainly watched college highlights to feel anything
Incremental progress can still come from tanking even if you get the #1 pick. The first year you usually still get a low pick. Year 2 is when the rebuild starts for real.
I think it is very sad that the nba does not have a relegation system like in a lot of other sports or regions, as such records would not be acceptable in other leagues and “just” continuing playing badly for lottery picks.
I had no clue Magic has been that bad, they’re even ahead of us which is quite something.
Can yall take it easy on us now? 😭😂
Grizzlies are a good team confirmed
Just glad to be ahead of the Lakers. 🏆
You can always have hope
I have watched my Hornets be absolute fucking dogshit for more or less the last quarter century before these last few weeks.
If we can make it out of the mud literally anyone can. You did not have it worse than we did.
Pistons have Cade
Wolves have Ant and KAT before that
Magic have Banchero + Wagner
Pelicans have Zion and AD before that
Getting the #1 overall pick is still the best path to title contention. It’s infinitely better than being a team like the Raptors who hover around play-in status too scared to tank. Toronto has gone about 25 years since they had a #1 option (outside of 1 Kawhi year). Could you imagine how people in LA would react to that reality? Would they even support their team after a decade of that?
Looking at that list in the OP the Pels definitely have luck on their side. Trade CP3 -> get AD right after. Trade AD -> get Zion right after
The raptors have made the play in 1 time and immediately after tanked for 2 years lol wtf are u talking about? From 2013 to 2020 they were consistently a top team in the east, made the ECF, lost a couple times to the best player of the last 25 years, and then won it all.
They were still great the year after Kawhi left went 53-19 which is a 60 win pace in a regular season, were 1 shot away in a game 7 vs the Celtics from making the ECF again.
The year following that they got absolutely fucked by having to play in Tampa, being the only team to not play a single game at home all year which fucked everything up evaluation wise and delayed the tank which is the one misstep in the last 15 years pretty much.
That’s not true. Last #1 pick to win it all (with their original team) was Kyrie.