The Detroit Pistons are having one of the worst seasons of all time. In fact, they already set a new NBA record for consecutive losses in a single season. Their 27 straight losses are the most in league history, and there isn't a clear end in sight. The Pistons are on pace to have the worst season ever, but we wanted to rank the worst NBA teams of the last 10 years. That list is below.
10. 2023-24 San Antonio Spurs
Lost in the shadow of the Pistons' losing streak this year is the fact the San Antonio Spurs are also having a horrible season. Detroit may only have two wins, but the Spurs only have four wins against 25 losses.
This was not the outcome tthe Spurs were expecting. San Antonio was the worst team in the Western Conference last season, but Victor Wembanyama was supposed to turn this franchise around.
The No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft was viewed as a truly generational prospect, with optimists believing he could make the Spurs playoff contenders as a rookie. Wembanyama has been solid overall and spectacular at times, but hasn't been as dominant as most expected while failing to make a tangible impact on winning for the Spurs.
While the first two months of the season proved Wembanyama still has ample room to get better, he has been far from one of the biggest problems on the team. In fact, his teammates have struggled to get him the ball despite his 7'4 frame. This is largely due to the fact the team doesn't have many true point guards.
Tre Jones is a point guard, but he comes off the bench. Meanwhile, San Antonio has forced Jeremy Sochan into the lead point guard role despite the fact that he is a 6'9 forward much better suited to playing a secondary or even tertiary playmaking role.
The Spurs lack players with vision, creation ability and the explosiveness to to consistently pressure the rim. On top of all of that, they also struggle from three-point land, which has only made it harder for the team to collapse the defense and get easy looks. San Antonio is only shooting 34.5% from deep.
The Spurs have the potential to get better, but so far have been a major disappointment. Gregg Popovich has made some gambles with his personnel and game plans this year, and it is possible he switches things up soon if the team doesn't show improvement.
9. 2018-19 New York Knicks
The New York Knicks are one of the most popular teams in the NBA, but they tied their franchise-worst record in 2018-19 when they went 17-65. The Knicks of this season didn't have the star power that New York is used to. In fact, the talent on the roster was pretty deprived overall.
Tim Hardaway Jr. was the team's best player. His supporting cast included former lottery picks Dennis Smith Jr., Mario Hezonja and Emmanuel Mudiay, players who had all already been labeled as busts. Kevin Knox was supposed to make an impact as a rookie, too, but turned out to be on the path toward bust territory as well.
8. 2022-23 Detroit Pistons
The Pistons may have set the record for the longest losing streak this season, but there were clear signs they were going to be bad dating back to last year. The Pistons went 17-65, largely because their best player, Cade Cunningham, missed the majority of the year with an injury.
The team made a number of moves at the trade deadline in an effort to get some wins under their belt, but none of them seemed to work. The Pistons only won three games after the NBA trade deadline, so their losing ways date back to last year as they had two losing streaks of 11 games to end the season.
7. 2015-16 Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers are the second-winningest team in NBA history with 3,519 total victories, but were very bad in 2015-16. That year, they went 17-65. This was Kobe Bryant's famed retirement tour, but he didn't play like the Kobe Bryant we all know and love who is one of the greatest players of all time. Bryant only averaged 17.6 points per game on putrid 35.8% shooting, but he also had to deal with playing with a roster of misfits and young players.
D'Angelo Russell, Julius Randle and Larry Nance Jr. were all young and still had a lot of developing to do. And players like Nick Young, Jordan Clarkson and Lou Williams were score-first guards who didn't fit well alongside a ball-dominant player like Bryant.
The team was full of inefficient shot-chuckers, and it led to the worst effective field goal percentage in the NBA. That fact, coupled with the fact the team wasn't great on defense, led to the Lakers being the worst team in the league in 2015-16. Los Angeles did have a saving grace, though. That was when Kobe Bryant scored 60 points in his last game.
6. 2020-21 Houston Rockets
The Houston Rockets have become a pretty good team in 2023, but it took years of rebuilding to get here. That rebuild began during the 2020-21 season.
James Harden was disgruntled, and he requested a trade. The star guard was moved after eight games, and the rest of the season was a disaster for Houston. However, the Rockets had attained a sizable haul of draft assets from the Harden trade, and tanking was the clear path they wanted to take.
If losing was the goal, it worked. Houston lost a franchise record 20 straight games during this season. The team's league-worst record afforded them the chance to select Jalen Green, struggling to find his niche with the revamped Rockets, in the 2021 NBA Draft.
5. 2014-15 Minnesota Timberwolves
The 2014-15 Minnesota Timberwolves had just traded Kevin Love—one of the best players in the NBA—for rising sophomore Anthony Bennett and rookie Andrew Wiggins, the last two No. 1 overall picks of the NBA Draft. The young Timberwolves struggled.
Bennett, in particular, was already cementing himself as one of the biggest draft busts of all time. Wiggins won the Rookie of the Year Award, but he did it by putting up what some described as empty numbers.
Kevin Garnett also returned to Minnesota at the trade deadline, but he was in year 19 and way past his prime. Amazingly, 10 different Timberwolves players averaged double-digits in scoring. The team allowed 106.5 points per game, though, the worst mark in the NBA.
4. 2019-20 Golden State Warriors
It is weird to see a Golden State Warriors team from the last decade on this list. The Warriors have been the best team in the NBA over this time period, as they have won four championships and appeared in two other NBA Finals. They were not good in 2019-20, but also weren't the same team NBA fans have come to know.
The Warriors made their fifth straight Finals appearance in 2018-19, but injuries killed their chances to win a third consecutive championship. Kevin Durant tore his achilles in Game 5 of the 2019 Finals before heading to the Brooklyn Nets the following summer, while Klay Thompson tore his ACL one game later, forcing him to miss the entirety of 2019-20. The Dubs even traded Andre Igudoala at the 2020 trade deadline.
Golden State was shorthanded, but the expectation was that Steph Curry and Draymond Green could still carry the team to playoff contention. Things went even further south, though, when Steph Curry broke his second metacarpal in only the fifth game of the season. The injury forced him to miss the remainder of the year, and Steve Kerr was relegated to replying on players who were never expected to be in the rotation.
Additionally, Green struggled without his fellow superstars. Green is a defense-first player with good playmaking ability, but he is not a great scorer. His role-player mentality and play style didn't translate to being the top option, and he had his second-worst scoring season since his sophomore year.
To make matters worse, the 2019-20 season was the weirdest season in NBA history. Concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic suspended the season early, with the action stopped in March. The season resumed in the NBA bubble in July, but the Warriors had the worst record in the league at the time and were not one of the 22 teams invited to continue the season.
3. 2013-14 Milwaukee Bucks
The 2013-14 season was Giannis Antetokounmpo's rookie season and Khris Middleton's first season with the Bucks. If you remember right, though, those players weren't nearly as good at that point as we remember them to be today. Many people forget that Middleton actually spent his first season with the Pistons. He didn't do much there, and the team moved on from him after only a year. Antetokounmpo, on the other hand, was a skinny and raw prospect who was going to need time to develop.
Middleton and Antetokounmpo showed flashes, but neither were great in their first year with the Bucks. Brandon Knight, Ramon Sessions and O.J. Mayo were the other talented players on the team, but they were all guards. The team lacked much production in the post, and that was especially true since Larry Sanders missed most of the season with injuries.
2. 2023-24 Detroit Pistons
Detroit's 17-65 record was the worst in the NBA last year, yet they ended up with only the fifth overall pick. Ausar Thompson has actually been good for them, and he has even been one of the best rookies. However, he struggles shooting the ball, and he hasn't done enough to fix the Pistons' many other problems.
Shooting is a glaring weakness on the team. At 33.5 percent from deep, Detroit is the second-worst shooting team in the NBA. The team has plenty of good slashers, but they don't have many catch-and-shoot threats to stretch the floor. Players like Cade Cuningham and Jaden Ivey thrive at getting to the rack, but they don't pair well together because of their lack of shooting prowess.
The roster construction overall is not good, as not only are there few shooting threats, but the team has way too many bigs and not enough wings. Players like Jalen Duren, Isaiah Stewart, Marvin Bagley and James Wiseman are all best at center, but the logjam at that position has forced the Pistons to play multiple bigs at once. The clunkiness that comes with having so many bigs on the floor has only made life harder for their slashers, who are forced to drive into the teeth of a packed paint.
Detroit is 2-28, but there is no end in sight for their long losing streak. Their next matchup is against the Boston Celtics, the team with the best record in the NBA. If they keep this up, they might go down as the worst team ever.
1. 2015-16 Philadelphia 76ers
The most iconic “bad team” in the history of the NBA might be “The Process” Philadelphia 76ers. Philadelphia underwent a multi-year rebuild unlike anything the NBA had ever seen. The team basically invented modern-day tanking, as they deployed players who didn't belong in the NBA in an effort to lose games and get high draft picks.
The rebuild didn't work perfectly in hindsight, but the results were there as the Sixers went only 10-72 in 2015-16. They finished the season with the third-worst record in NBA history. The team also had a 28-game losing streak dating back to the previous season, which was the longest overall losing streak in NBA history.
While the Sixers acquired a lot of talent through the draft because of their “process,” they didn't always take the right players. This season was a prime example of that, as Jahlil Okafor, Nerlens Noel and Richaun Holmes—three of their best players—all played center. This didn't even include Joel Embiid, another center, but one who missed the season with injury.
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