Sign In Using Facebook  |  Sign In  |  Sign Up

Philadelphia 76ers STILL the Worst Team in NBA History

B-Dub Written by B-Dub, Thursday April 01 2010
Text Size - A +
Now that the New Jersey Nets have won their 10th game, the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers get to keep the title of the worst team in NBA history.  That team finished 9-73, an NBA-record 59 games behind the first place Boston Celtics in the Atlantic Division. 
 
And to think some Nets fans have taken to wearing brown paper bags over their heads in disgust at their team's performance.  HA!  Not only did they steal that idea from the New Orleans Saints fans of yesteryear, but the Nets weren't even bad enough to set the record.  What losers.  It makes me proud to be a Philly sports fan.  We're still #1 baby.
 
The 1972-73 Sixers were a complete train wreck from beginning to end, but the seeds of that abomination were planted in the years that preceded that season.  Six years earlier, the 1966-67 Sixers set the record for most wins in a season at the time.  Then after they lost to the Boston Celtics in the 1968 NBA Finals, Wilt Chamberlain was traded to the L.A. Lakers.  In return for Wilt the Sixers received Darrell Imhoff, Archie Clark and Jerry Chambers.  None of them ever amounted to much.
 
As if that wasn't bad enough the Sixers first round draft choices from 1967 through 1972 were stiffs named Craig Raymond, Shaler Halimon, Bud Ogden, Harris Ahmad, Al Henry, Dana Lewis and Fred Boyd.  Not exactly a roll call for the Hall of Fame is it?  Some guy named Julius Erving was taken 12th by the Milwaukee Bucks in the 1972 draft when the Sixers took Boyd.  So close.
 
By the 1972-73 season, GM / coach Jack Ramsey had left the team.  So the Sixers hired Long Island University coach Roy Rubin after Marquette's Al McGuire turned down an offer to be the coach.
 
Rubin was over-matched coaching in the NBA.  Center Dale Schlueter, who was traded to the Sixers right before the 1972-73 season said, "The coach knew absolutely nothing about how to coach in the NBA.  He had no clue how to handle adults.  He had been around college kids."
 
The team started the season 0-15 and endured a 20-game losing streak during the season.  When the Sixers won their first game, Rubin actually injured himself by pulling a leg muscle.  Yeah, it was that kind of season.  After a 4-47 start, Rubin was fired as coach.  He was replaced by Sixers player Kevin Loughery, who became a player / coach for the rest of the season.  Loughery actually did better than Rubin by finishing the season 5-26, but that wasn't enough to escape the infamy of being the worst team ever.
 
Fred Carter was the Sixers leading scorer that season at 20 points per game.  "Every now and then, a team shows signs of breaking our record," said Carter, who was also named the MVP of the 9-73 team.  "That forces me to go to church and light candles to preserve our record.  You can achieve immortality so many ways; if our record is broken, people might not remember that I played in the NBA.  We would be forgotten souls."  Well, not this year anyway Fred.
 
Carter called those Sixers "the universal health spa of the league.  Teams got well playing against us," he said.  "When we walked through airports, I used to turn my travel bag with the team logo against me so people didn't know who we were."  Hey it could have been worse Fred.  Your fans could have worn paper bags over their heads, even though nobody will ever remember their not quite historically bad season. 
 
Something tells me that nobody will ever be able to forget the 1972-73 season of the Philadelphia 76ers.  "Really it was a pile of crap," Schlueter said of that season.  Yes it was, but it was our pile of crap.  As a Philly sports fan, I'm a little bit proud of our team's place in history.

Tags:  



Recent 76ers Articles






Leave a comment

Name *
Email *
Website

Create date
— :

Article

Sport

City

Team

Photo

X

Not So Fast! To publish your comment, you have to login

Not Registered? Register now as it only take 20 seconds!



Click here to browse




2 comments


0 up down 0
B-DubB-Dub, over 2 years ago said:

Hey, if you're going to be be bad, you should at least strive to be the best at it. The Nets are the real losers since they couldn't even lose properly. And by the way, I may have been alive in 1972-73, but I was only four at the time, so I don't remember this team.

0 up down 0
Kerri SennoKerri Senno, over 2 years ago said:

At least you're delusional. You brag when they're good, you brag when they're bad. Regardless, a 20 game losing streak must have been brutal for fans back in the day.