The Worst NBA Teams Ever: 76ers vs Bobcats

The worst NBA team ever depends on how you measure it. The 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers lost the most games in league history at 9-73, while the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats posted the lowest single-season winning percentage ever, .106 from a 7-59 record, in a year the lockout cut to 66 games.

That split is the whole argument. One team piled up losses over a full schedule; the other lost at a faster rate but played 16 fewer games. Call either the worst and you are choosing a metric, not settling a fact.

The 1972-73 76ers: most losses ever

Philadelphia’s 9-73 season is the benchmark for futility because of the raw loss count. Seventy-three defeats in a single 82-game schedule has never been matched, and it was built the hard way: the 76ers opened the year 0-15 and never recovered. Their .110 winning percentage stood as the league low for nearly four decades.

The strength of this record is that it needs no asterisk. Eighty-two games, nine wins, no shortened calendar to explain it away. When people picture the worst team in NBA history, the 9-73 Sixers are usually the image, and by the games-lost measure they remain the champions of losing.

The 2011-12 Bobcats: worst winning percentage

Charlotte’s 7-59 is the lowest winning percentage in NBA history at .106, edging the 76ers’ .110. The catch is the calendar. A 149-day lockout delayed the 2011-12 season until Christmas Day and compressed it to 66 games. The Bobcats won their opener against Milwaukee, then managed six wins across the remaining 65 games.

Because the Bobcats played 16 fewer games, they never had the chance to lose 73. Project their .106 rate across a full 82-game slate and it lands around 9-73, roughly level with the Sixers. So the two worst seasons are, by rate, almost a dead heat; the difference is that one was run over a full schedule and one was not.

The worst NBA seasons ranked

Here are the lowest single-season winning percentages in NBA history. The games-played column is the number that stops these being a straight comparison.

Team	Season	Record	Win %	Games
Charlotte Bobcats	2011-12	7-59	.106	66
Philadelphia 76ers	1972-73	9-73	.110	82
Philadelphia 76ers	2015-16	10-72	.122	82
Providence Steamrollers	1947-48	6-48	.125	54
Denver Nuggets	1997-98	11-71	.134	82
Dallas Mavericks	1992-93	11-71	.134	82
New Jersey Nets	2009-10	12-70	.146	82
LA Clippers	1986-87	12-70	.146	82

Read down the games column and the ranking rearranges itself. Among full 82-game seasons, the 76ers’ .110 is the floor. Include shortened years and the Bobcats slip underneath. The 1947-48 Providence Steamrollers won only six games, fewer than anyone, but did so in a 54-game season from the league’s first years, another era entirely.

The worst losing streak: 2023-24 Pistons

A bad season and a bad streak are different records. The 2023-24 Detroit Pistons never approached the 9-73 loss total, finishing 14-68, but they set a mark of their own by losing 28 games in a row, from late October to late December. It is the longest losing streak inside a single NBA season, and it tied the all-time record the 76ers had spread across the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons. Detroit’s version was worse in one sense: it happened without a summer in the middle to break it up.

Which one is really the worst?

If the question is fewest wins in a full season, it is the 9-73 76ers. If it is lowest winning percentage, it is the 7-59 Bobcats. If it is longest losing streak, it is the 2023-24 Pistons. The honest answer is that no single team owns “worst” outright, because the seasons were not the same length and the eras were not the same game.

For the opposite extreme, see the longest winning streak in NBA history and the franchises that built dynasties in our guide to the NBA team with the most championships. For individual struggles rather than team ones, we have also ranked the worst players in the NBA. As of 2026 the 9-73 loss record has stood for over 50 years, and with the modern draft lottery flattening the reward for bottoming out, it may never be seriously challenged again.