You know you’re a bad basketball team when the players start turning their gear bags inside-out, to hide the team logo and name tags in hotel lobbies.
That was Fred Carter’s enduring memory of the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers. Decades later, Carter still takes an odd pride in the distinction, “best player on the worst team in NBA history.’’ He hopes no one from the Charlotte Bobcats gets the chance to replace him that way.
The 76ers finished 9-72. The Bobcats are now 3-22, nearing the midpoint of a lockout-shortened 66-game schedule. The Bobcats are a long way from worst ever, and will probably avoid any such indignity, but everything of late suggests a bad moon rising:
They have the worst winning percentage in the NBA at 12 percent, and none of the three teams they beat has a winning record.
They have the NBA’s worst point-differential (minus-13.6 per game) by a wide margin – nearly three points a game worse than the Washington Wizards, who have already beaten them twice.
They’re on a 12-game losing streak – longest in the NBA – and open a three-game home stand tonight against the Chicago Bulls. Chicago is the best team in the Eastern Conference and best road team in the East with 13 victories away from Chicago.
Fun, huh? Carter, 66, played against Bobcats coach Paul Silas and respects Silas’work as a coach. Carter says Silas’people skills – he’s known for keeping players confident and positive – will be crucial riding out this mess.
Losing can start for a variety of reasons, Carter says, but losing’s most dangerous quality is how it feeds off itself.
“I guarantee every team in the league looks at Charlotte on their schedule and says, ‘That’s a win.’’’ said Carter, now semi-retired after stints as a coach and television analyst. “When the Bobcats look at their schedule, there’s no one they can pencil in with, ‘That’s a win.’
“The players themselves have to be really careful of that. Those losses can diminish their careers. Lose enough and it becomes a mindset – you play accordingly.’’
As hiding the logos on their luggage demonstrated, the Sixers became embarrassed, if not ashamed, to play for that team. Fans showed up for home games wearing bags on their heads and the Sixers received a cruel nickname that stuck: “Universal Health Spa,’’ as in every opponent gets well with a game against Philly.
Carter says the Sixers were just plain bad at a time before expansion watered down every NBA roster:
“If I was their best player, you know we didn’t have much talent,’’ Carter recalled. “I could score 20 points a game, but I never made a teammate better.’’
Carter has followed the Bobcats’ situation and says this is more complicated – what he calls a “perfect storm” of circumstance:
The Bobcats weren’t that good to begin with, but now they’ve lost three starters to injury (Gerald Henderson, D.J. Augustin and Corey Maggette). That pushed Silas to start two rookies (Kemba Walker and Bismack Biyombo) at point guard and center. And the lockout compacted the schedule so thoroughly that a bad patch gets amplified.
As Silas acknowledged, after trailing the Portland Trail Blazers by as much as 48 points last week, “There’s nothing really I can do about it. The guys are playing as hard as they can. We just don’t have enough (talent) at this particular point.’’
‘Never a break.’
Bobcats shooting guard Matt Carroll certainly buys that the lockout has worsened the dynamic:
“There’s never really a break; on this schedule three losses become six in a very short time frame,’’ Carroll said Thursday.
A nine-season NBA veteran, Carroll says he’s impressed by how positive the atmosphere has remained: No grousing, no finger-pointing and practices have been good.
Carroll says Silas maintains that. Carroll notes that the first thing Silas did when he replaced Larry Brown as coach 14 months ago was restore certain players’ confidence.
“He told people to go shoot; that he believed in them,’’ Carroll said.
Maggette experienced chronic losing with the Los Angeles Clippers. He says he hasn’t seen the corrosive effect of losing hit this team yet.
“This is when you really have to be a professional,’’ said Maggette.
As bad as the Bobcats’ start has been, it’s actually not even worst in recent memory: The 2009-10 New Jersey Nets started 0-16 and 3-36. So the Bobcats’ losing streak would have to reach 26 just to match the Nets’ pace, and they finished 12-70.
But what if their fortunes don’t change, and the Bobcats end with one of the worst records in league history? Is there a consolation prize in June’s draft?
Not necessarily. The Bobcats missing the playoffs means they won’t have to send their 2012 first-round pick to the Bulls (in compensation for a previous trade to acquire forward Tyrus Thomas). However, unlike the NFL, the NBA doesn’t guarantee its worst team the best pick.
Since 1985, the NBA has held a draft lottery, giving all non-playoff teams a chance at one of the first three picks. There was a perception that the Houston Rockets were tanking games back in 1983 to end up with Virginia center Ralph Sampson. The Rockets got Sampson and the NBA went to that lottery system two years later.
The lottery (which is now weighted to give teams with the worst records extra chances) might be good for the league’s integrity, but it’s been cruel to the worst of the worst. Since ’85, eight NBA teams have finished with 14 or fewer victories. None of those eight teams received the No.1 pick in the resulting draft lottery (see accompanying chart).
In fact, only one of those eight teams used their top-four pick to successfully find a “franchise’’-type player. That was the Dallas Mavericks, who selected point guard Jason Kidd in 1994. Kidd was a key player on Dallas’ championship team last season, but only after Dallas traded him away and re-acquired him years later from the Nets.
The point: If you’re thinking the Bobcats might win by losing this season, the odds aren’t anything like a gimme.
Possible Bobcats victories
With a 3-22 record, the Bobcats are eight games away from the mid-point of the lockout-shortened 66-game schedule. That means going at least 7-34 the rest of the way to avoid the indignity of not reaching double-digit victories.
Where those seven victories might lie the rest of the season:
Three games vs. the Pistons: In Auburn Hills, Mich., Feb. 29 and March 31 and in Charlotte April 12. Certainly they won’t get swept in a four-game series by a team this bad.
Home and home with the Hornets: In New Orleans March 12 (three days before the trade deadline) and in Charlotte April 16. The Hornets just got drilled by 23, at home, by the Bulls.
Two home games vs. the Nets: Brook Lopez’s injury sent this team in a tailspin. There aren’t many targets for Deron Williams’ passes. But that didn’t stop the Nets from beating the Bobcats in Newark.
Home vs. the Kings: The Bobcats have won six of seven home games all-time against the team from Sacramento.
