What was the worst team in NBA history? What was their record?
Every NBA season, there are some teams who come out and flat out stink, but no team stunk like the 1972/73 76ers who are considered the worst team ever.
There is something to be said for being the greatest of all time. The ‘72 Miami Dolphins still pop their comemorative champaign every time the last undefeated team of each NFL season falls. When you are the best ever your name is not only etched in the history books forever, but also in the minds of sports fans for eternity. The same thing happens when you are the worst ever.
Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls held on to history for two decades after losing just 10 games in 1996, but 20 years later the Golden State Warriors topped their seemingly impossible season by going 73-9. Just as the best teams ever will be remembered, so too will the worst teams.
Greatness is often unattainable. Much more often, as human’s we connect with the polar opposite end of the spectrum, which is why we hold those who are considered the worst ever so near and dear to our hearts.
Fred Carter: leader of the worst team ever
“There are different ways you can earn immortality — and that’s our immortality; we earned it. It’s better to be remembered than not remembered at all. And if somebody breaks the record and has only eight wins, we will be pushed aside and forgotten.”
Those are the words of Fred Carter who was the best of the worst on a Philadelphia 76ers dream that went 9-73 back in the 1972/73. Carter averaged 20 points, six rebounds and 4.3 assists on a team that not only finished with the worst record in the league that year, but the worst record in the history NBA.
What made the case of that particular team so strange was Philly had won the NBA title a few years earlier. Wilt Chamberlain led the Sixers to their second championship in franchise history in 1967, but that offseason the legendary center was traded to Los Angeles and the downfall began. They made the playoffs in the three years following Chaimberlain’s departure, but never got past round two of the postseason.
The real trouble started to shine through in 71/72 when the Sixers missed the playoffs and finished the season with a losing record. They had fallen from grace, but nothing could prepared them for what was to come.
Roy Rubin put to the axe
Their season of historic futility started with a 15 game losing streak, which surprisingly was not their longest losing streak of the 72/73 season. That came in January, when they lost 20 straight games but then followed it up with an inexplicable run of five wins in seven games during the month of February. Their last victory of the season came on the last day of February when they beat Wes Unsled and the Baltimore Bullets 102-96.
They would go on to lose their final 13 games of the season to finish with just nine wins and 73 losses. A record that still stands to this day. Their first coach, Roy Rubin, took a lot of the blame for the unforgettably forgettable season, but the Sixers were not a team that were not ready to compete in the NBA on a nightly basis. Rubin had coach Long Island University and helped them regain their allure among the small colleges of the US, but he never coached a big program in college, or in the NBA.
He was in over his head, but was presented with too tempting of an offer before the nightmare season as Carter pointed out years later, “It wasn’t his fault — he wasn’t ready for that,” Carter said. “Anybody would take an NBA job if it was handed to them. It’s a shame. He took a job he wasn’t capable of doing.” Rubin was fired midway through the season, after going 4-47 in his short tenure.
Lockout ruins Bobcats chance at record
While a lot of the blame rained down on Rubin, Carter recognizes that, “There was no finger pointing. Because we knew, individually and collectively, that we were not good enough to sustain ourselves to win games in the NBA. We were all probably pretty good role players that could help a team win. We didn’t have a starter that could carry us.”
The Charlotte Bobcats flirted with Philly’s record but their 7-59 season was cut short by the lockout in the 2011-2012 season. That means the 72/73 Sixers remain the worst team ever, and while Carter and the rest of the living legends won’t pop champaign every time the last team reaches 10 wins, they still stand alone at the bottom of the NBA mountain.