National Basketball Association

Nets, Wolves making run at embarrassing record

Published Dec. 4, 2009 2:05 a.m. ET

foxsports

As another fresh NBA season limps toward the tryptophan-recovery phase, many casual observers may not realize that two teams are breaking quite badly.

Without further preamble, we give you the New Jersey Nets and Minnesota Timberwolves, a tag-team of woe that has produced 29 defeats in 30 games.

The chase for ping-pong supremacy in the John Wall Sweepstakes has begun.

And we'll start in the Jersey swamp land, where the Nets check in at 0-15. Before attempting to define this disaster, let's take a look at what level of league history the Nets are teasing. According to the scrolls, the Nets obviously are well within striking range of the all-time flop recorded by the 1972-'73 Philadelphia 76ers, who came home with only nine victories in 82 regular-season dates.

Coaching responsibility for the Sixers' losses was split by Roy Rubin and Kevin Loughery. The roster included such NBA luminaries as Fred "Mad Dog" Carter (whose nickname preceded the team's predicament), John Block, LeRoy Ellis, Bill Bridges and Tom Van Arsdale.

Those Sixers managed to average 104 points per game, but in the situational defensive climate of the time (guard someone on the last few possessions), they coughed up an average of 12 more points than they accumulated.

For immediate futility, the Nets are closing in on the 0-17 starts turned in by the 1988 Miami Heat and a Los Angeles Clippers crew that didn't win until the 18th game after a lockout was completed in 1999. The L.A. crisis was not difficult to imagine when we point out that new head coach Chris Ford had the unstoppable Lamond Murray as his toughest offensive customer at crunch time.