It looks like the NBA All-Star break is upon us.
How are the Detroit Pistons doing?
Well, at the break, they are 8-46, for a .148 winning percentage. The Washington Wizards are 9-45, for a .167 winning percentage.
Projecting this out, and assuming things remain the same, the Pistons will win about 12 games, and the Wizards 13.7 games.
That’s not good, but is it historically bad?
Actually, maybe, yes.
I had a hard time finding a list of worst NBA teams. You’d think that would be a Wikipedia page, but no. ESPN has one, but it hasn’t been updated recently.
I finally found this page (from December of last year).
The 1993-94 Dallas Mavericks and 2004-05 Atlanta Hawks both went 13-69, and are #9 and #8 on the list. The Wizards could fit comfortably in there.
The 2009-10 New Jersey Nets and 1986-87 Los Angeles Clippers all went 12-70, and are #7 and #6 on the list. Detroit could fit comfortably in there.
If I’m off by one (or two) in my projections, they could match the 1997-98 Denver Nuggets (11-71, #5) and the 1992-93 Dallas Mavericks (11-71, #4). I can’t see either team reaching the heights of the 2015-16 Philadelphia 76ers (10-72, #3) or the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers (9-73, #2, and the team I think most people agree is the worst ever).
#1 on the list is the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats, with a winning percentage of .106. However, there was a lockout that season, and they only played 66 games. As a personal rule, I generally do not take into account strike (or lockout) shortened seasons when I’m looking at this stuff.
I have not watched an NBA game since Isaiah Thomas and company were the big team that one year.
Probably because while I was an athlete in high school, I was a terrible basketball player.
I was a wrestler instead, winning the MI state tournament in my weight class when my team was in the semi finals. We lost, because we traveled the day before and stayed in a hotel to avoid the long bus ride early in the morning. The seniors on the team got drunk that night in the hotel, and they got slaughtered at the match the next morning.
So while we lost as a team I won my match by pin. Due to the Jimmy Carter economy, the next year we didn’t have a wrestling program. And myself and at least 5 other seniors in my class looked like we could have won the individual title of state champion in our class, that being called class D, based on the number of students in our high school.
We had around 350 students in our whole high school. In contrast, my wife had over 500 students in just her graduating class.
I am still just a small town person, even though I live in a city and surrounding area of some 150,000 people. While I could live in the woods in a cabin with no neighbors, my wife is a city gal, through and through.