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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1974- Close-up of Bill Fitch, Cleveland Cavaliers, coach, in uniform smiling. Undated color slide.
1974- Close-up of Bill Fitch, Cleveland Cavaliers, coach, in uniform smiling. Undated color slide. /

Cleveland Cavaliers (1970-71, 15-67, -12.04 SRS)

There are no shortage of lean years for the Cavaliers. 2002-03 stands out as one of their worst as the team finished 17-65 but that netted them LeBron James, so we’ll call that one even. When James left to take his talents to South Beach the team cratered without their star finishing 19-63, but that got them Kyrie Irving. Fair play.

Regardless of those and unfortunately many other bad years, there is only one contender for the worst Cavaliers team in history: 1970-71.

I don’t like choosing expansion teams for this list because NBA expansion teams usually don’t stand much of a chance. Saddled with mediocre players in a league driven by star power, they have almost no chance of competing with the rest of the year.

But, the 1970-71 Cavaliers added a new level of futility. Under legendary coach Bill Fitch, the inaugural Cavaliers finished 15-67 but worse than that finished dead-last in nearly every statistical category across the league.

Points per game? Dead last. OffRtg? Dead last. DefRtg? Dead last. These Cavaliers lost their games by an average of 11 points per game and have the third-worst SRS in league history.

The team’s leading scorer: Walt Wesley failed to average double-digits in scoring during the first four years of his career and shot up to 17.7 with the new Cavaliers. Wesley would average 12.4 the following season for Cleveland then upon leaving the franchise, never get more than five a game.

The misery would be short lived for the Cavaliers as by the mid-70s they had become a competitive team and many of the players on the original team were long gone by “The Miracle of Richfield.”

Ted Stepien took over ownership of the team in early 1980s, and, well, there’s a rule named after him that says you can’t trade first-round picks in consecutive years, so you can probably assume how that went.

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