Fansided

Every NBA team’s worst iteration ever

By Rich Kraetsch

BOSTON - NOVEMBER 20: Guard Chris Herren and coach Rick Pitino's expressions on the bench reflected their loss against the 76ers. (Photo by Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
BOSTON - NOVEMBER 20: Guard Chris Herren and coach Rick Pitino's expressions on the bench reflected their loss against the 76ers. (Photo by Jim Davis/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) /
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LOS ANGELES – 1988: A.C. Green #45 of the Los Angeles Lakers guards Grant Long #43 of the Miami Heat during an NBA game at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, California in 1988. (Photo by: Mike Powell/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES – 1988: A.C. Green #45 of the Los Angeles Lakers guards Grant Long #43 of the Miami Heat during an NBA game at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles, California in 1988. (Photo by: Mike Powell/Getty Images) /

Miami Heat (1988-89, 15-67, -11.13 SRS)

The Miami Heat have been one of the NBA’s most successful franchises, missing the playoffs just 10 times in their 30-year history and winning three NBA championships along the way.

Things did not start out well for the Heat though as their expansion team wasn’t just expansion team bad, they were legendarily awful.

Miami’s -11.13 SRS is the seventh-worst in NBA history. Miami’s expansion mate (Charlotte Hornets) were bad in their own right finishing at 20-62 under head coach Dick Harter (heh-heh) but still, they weren’t expansion Miami Heat bad.

To date, only the 1971-72 Cleveland Cavaliers and the 1949-50 Denver Nuggets (different franchise than the current Nuggets) had worse years as expansion teams.

Miami was brutal, losing by an average of -11.23 points per game. The Heat were anything but losing their first 17 games as a franchise before finally (mercifully) getting their first victory December 14 in a one-point win over the Clippers.

The Heat were “led” in scoring by rookie Kevin Edwards with just 13.8 points-per-game, Rory freakin’ Sparrow was their second leading scorer at 12.5. All three of Miami’s draft picks (Edwards, Rony Seikaly and Grant Long) played big minutes and seemed to be solid building blocks for the future but overall the team was a mess. It’s hard to build much when Arvid Kramer is the first pick in your expansion draft. Kramer didn’t play a single game for Heat and was only picked as a trade provision with the Mavericks to keep the Heat away from Uwe Blab, Steve Alford and Bill Wennington — a whose who of late 80s basketball talent.

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