Some historically bad basketball
Detroit soaks up all the negative headlines but the NBA's four worst teams are getting outscored on a nightly basis at an alarming rate #thisleague has never seen. We've got all the damning data here
The short list of NBA teams that can be ruled out of contention for a spot in the league’s Play-In Tournament unexpectedly increased from five to six Monday night at 9:55 PM ET.
That’s when the Memphis Grizzlies issued a most sudden and somber injury bulletin to announce that Ja Morant needs season-ending shoulder surgery after a labral tear sustained over the weekend.
Morant’s 2023-24 season thus consisted of nine games. The Grizzlies went 6-3 with No. 12 back in the lineup after a 25-game suspension — 7-3 including their stunning win without him Sunday night in Phoenix — and are destined now to miss the playoffs with an injury list that is the antithesis of short. The Grizzlies are 7-20 this season with Morant unavailable. For Tuesday night’s game in Dallas, Memphis will be without as many as five regulars and maybe seven if Jaren Jackson Jr. and Santi Aldama can’t go.
The dispiriting developments in Grind City, however, can’t (and shouldn’t) obscure what’s been happening beneath the Grizzlies in the standings. As the regular-season midpoint draws ever closer, we are seeing some historically bad basketball.
It’s not just the 3-33 Detroit Pistons who, on top of their recent 28-game losing streak that established a new single-season record for NBA futility, have also now lost Cade Cunningham for at least 7-to-10 days to a knee injury.
Four teams awoke on this Newsletter Tuesday haunted by the embarrassing data in the third-to-last column of the standings here that shows that they’re being outscored by at least 10 points per game this season.
Four!
The very kind longtime contributor to The Stein Line who made sure I was tracking the never-before-seen layers of losing endured by the league’s worst teams this season got this ball rolling with research that extended back to the 1996-97 season. Our helpful informant found only eight teams — total — in a span of 27 seasons that were weighed down by such a lopsided nightly average scoring margin.
And never more than one in any given season.
I then turned to my fellow Substacker
in hopes of assembling a complete list. Professor Kubatko duly assembled it for me (you can subscribe to his tremendous work here) and found only 11 more teams in the NBA’s history that allowed an average of at least 10 points per game more than they scored for an entire season.And, again, no more than one such team in any given season.
In 2023-24?
There. Are. Four.
We repeat: The NBA is on course to witness four times as much double-digit losing as it has ever seen.
🏀 Detroit’s average scoring margin entering Tuesday’s play was -11.1 and, because of the historic losing streak, has shielded their fellow bottom-feeders from more criticism and embarrassment.
🏀 The Victor Wembanyama-led San Antonio Spurs, at 5-30, are even worse off than the Pistons at -11.4.
🏀 Charlotte (8-26) and Washington (6-30), meanwhile, are only marginally more competitive at -10.5 and -10.8, respectively. (Portland avoided ending up in this discussion, despite its 10-25 mark, with a comparatively passable average scoring differential of -7.3.)
Historically bad basketball, y’all.
PS — Thanks to Professor Kubatko we can share the entire list of the 19 previous teams in NBA history to sport an average point differential of -10.0 PPG or greater for an entire season:
2022-23 San Antonio Spurs (-10.0)
2020-21 Oklahoma City Thunder (-10.6)
2015-16 Philadelphia 76ers (-10.2)
2013-14 Philadelphia 76ers (-10.5)
2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats (-13.9)
1999-00 Los Angeles Clippers (-11.5)
1997-98 Denver Nuggets (-11.8)
1996-97 Vancouver Grizzlies (-10.2)
1995-96 Philadelphia 76ers (-10.0)
1992-93 Dallas Mavericks (-15.2)
1990-91 Denver Nuggets (-10.9)
1988-89 Miami Heat (-11.2)
1987-88 Los Angeles Clippers (-10.3)
1986-87 Los Angeles Clippers (-11.4)
1982-83 Houston Rockets (-11.6)
1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers (-12.1)
1970-71 Cleveland Cavaliers (-11.2)
1949-50 Denver Nuggets (-11.5)
1947-48 Providence Steamrollers (-11.6)
PPS — I’m somewhat ashamed of myself, as a proud NBA historian, that I didn’t even remember a version of the Denver Nuggets from the 1949-50 season. Even though that edition of the Nuggets is regarded as a completely separate franchise from the reigning NBA champions who were founded as an ABA team in 1967 … I’m still ashamed.
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Chatter Box
The latest on the trade front with Dejounte Murray, Pascal Siakam and Zach LaVine.
The latest from Lakerland as well as pulse-takes on the Suns and Warriors, too.
The latest edition of iHeart’s #thisleague UNCUT podcast, with me alongside Turner Sports’ Chris Haynes, covers all that.
Listen here:
Numbers Game
🏀 40
The NBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis is 40 days away on Feb. 18. Can the Pacers' Tyrese Haliburton recover from Monday night's scary left hamstring strain in time to rep the hometown team when it hosts All-Star Weekend?
🏀 150
The Haliburton-led Pacers have scored 150 points in a game three times already this season. The trusty Professor Kubatko informs us that only two teams in league history have done it four times in a single season: The 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio in 1978-79).
🏀 25.1
Ja Morant averaged 25.1 points per game in the nine games he played for the Grizzlies this season.
🏀 5
Five teams in the East awoke Tuesday with identical 21-15 records: Orlando, Miami, Indiana, New York and Cleveland.
🏀 12
Jimmy Butler has missed 12 of Miami's 36 games this season. He can only miss five more and remain eligible for MVP and All-NBA consideration.
🏀 9
Philadelphia's Joel Embiid, for that matter, can only miss nine more games to remain eligible for a second consecutive MVP award and All-NBA selection.
🏀 8
RJ Barrett is the eighth Canadian to play for the Toronto Raptors. Barrett joins Jamaal Magloire, Cory Joseph, Khem Birch, Anthony Bennett, Oshae Brissett, Chris Boucher and Dalano Banton.
🏀 17
The 17 games that Golden State's Draymond Green has missed through suspension this season have sliced nearly $9 million off the Warriors' projected luxury tax bill this season of $195 million.
🏀 11-4
The Jazz led by 31 points at halftime Monday night in Milwaukee in an eventual 132-116 victory over the Bucks that nudged Utah to 11-4 in its past 15 games. We keep saying it: All this winning makes Utah even more interesting in advance of Feb. 8 trade deadline given the team's presumed status as a Trade Deadline Seller after a disappointing 7-16 start.
🏀 0-3
The Bucks, after their humbling loss to the Jazz, are 0-3 this season when Damian Lillard does not play.
🏀 1977
Another piece of my childhood was lost Monday when German soccer legend Franz Beckenbauer died at age 78. He is best known for winning the World Cup as both a player and manager with what was then West Germany — and playing out of the back as a sweeper, or libero, better than anyone who has ever played the position. But it's Beckenbauer's place in American soccer (and as a shoe-selling force for Adidas to this day) that will stay with me the most. Beckenbauer joined the New York Cosmos in 1977 and, along with likes of Carlos Alberto and Giorgio Chinaglia and the incomparable Pelé, helped make this a soccer nation. The sport scarcely existed in this country before the Cosmos. His arrival, like Pele's, forced the world to pay attention to my beloved North American Soccer League and, by extension, U.S. soccer.
🏀 6
I have this discussion with my son and Mrs. Stein Line all the time since it's the position our photo editor Aaron Stein plays in volleyball: Libero is pronounced LEEbear-OH. Let's get it right in honor of No. 6. (Not LIH-bare-oh.)
🏀 97.1
I’m on the radio Saturdays from noon to 1 PM CT on 97.1 (FM) The Freak in Dallas with an hour of live NBA talk presented by Panini Trading Cards and Collectibles. Join us online by clicking the link embedded in this sentence or via the iHeart radio app to listen to The Saturday Stein Line on this or any Saturday ... or catch the podcasted version of the show once it drops via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or #whereveryougetyourpodcasts:
Thanks for shaking loose some old NASL memories. I remember those NY Cosmos, although my memories of Pele on that team are vague. I remember some ABC Wide World of Sports coverage, with Jim McKay, and then a lot of Pepsi sponsored skills movies of Pele training with Santos. I do remember Beckenbauer and Chingalia very well, though. Chingalia, from what I recall, was considered the best player in the league at the time, although my lowly San Jose Earthquakes had the actual George Best for a couple years (my first ever live match saw Best score a pair of goals, in fact). RIP to Der Kaiser
I remember my dad taking me to a friendly between Santos (featuring Pelé) and Benfica (with Eusebio) in (I believe) what was then Downing Stadium on Randall’s Island. I can’t remember much about the match, and nothing about Eusebio, but though I knew little about soccer, Pelé’s greatness was obvious.