March 25, 1973: The Detroit Pistons beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 115-96 on neutral ground at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. The Sixers thus close the season with the worst record in NBA history, 9-73.
Just 6 years earlier, they had the best record in NBA history to that point, 68-13, and won the NBA Championship. So what happened?
It didn't happen all at once. In 1967-68, they were 62-20, and reached the Eastern Conference Finals. But then head coach Alex Hannum left, for the Oakland Oaks of the American Basketball Association, where he led them to the Championship in 1969.
General manager Jack Ramsay took over as head coach, but he also traded the greatest player in basketball history, Wilt Chamberlain, to the Los Angeles Lakers for Darrall Imhoff (infamously, the New York Knicks center the night Wilt scored 100 points for the Philadelphia Warriors), Archie Clark and Jerry Chambers.
Still, the Sixers went 55-27 in 1968-69, 42-40 in 1969-70, and 47-35 in 1970-71, reaching the Playoffs each time. In 1971-72, they went 30-52, and missed the Playoffs. Ramsay left, to become head coach and general manager of the Buffalo Braves.
Sixers owner offered the head coaching job to Al McGuire of Marquette University. He turned the job down. Then they offered it to Adolph Rupp, who had just retired after 41 years at the University of Kentucky, including a then-record 876 wins and 4 National Championships. He was 71, and had had enough. He turned it down, too. So they hired Roy Rubin, from Long Island University.
He couldn't rely on the players from the title season of 1966-67: After that season, Bob Weiss was released; in 1968, Chamberlain was traded, Bill Melchionni was released, and Larry Costello retired; in 1969, Chet Walker was traded; in 1970, Dave Gambee retired; in 1971, Wali Jones and Matt Guokas were traded; and in 1972, Luke Jackson retired, and Billy Cunningham won his court case that allowed him to jump to the American Basketball Association and the Carolina Cougars.
It's not that Rubin didn't have talent, but, by the start of the 1972-73 season, Hal Greer was the only remaining players from the title season of 1966-67. He was 36, and the season would be his last. Tom Van Arsdale had already been to 3 All-Star Games. LeRoy Ellis and John Q. Trapp had been acquired from the defending Champion Los Angeles Lakers, Don May had won the title with the New York Knicks in 1970, and Mike Price had played for the previous season's ABA Champions, the Indiana Pacers. Kevin Loughery and Fred "Mad Dog" Carter were decent players. But they never meshed, and Rubin proved to be in over his head.
They began the season on October 10, 1972, losing 95-89 away to the Chicago Bulls, the start of a season-opening 15-game losing streak. Their 1st win came on November 16, against the Houston Rockets in a neutral-site game in San Antonio. They lost 6 more, falling to 1-21, then won away to the Buffalo Braves on November 23. A relatively brief 3-game losing streak, putting them at 2-24, ended on December 6, home to the Kansas City-Omaha Kings.
Then they lost 14 in a row, including through Christmas and New Year's, falling to 3-38, before finally beating the Seattle SuperSonics away on January 7, 1973. Included in that streak was... You've heard of a "trap game," a game that a good team should win, but there's precedent as to why they might lose it, and they do? Well, this was The Trapp Game.
Carter may have been known as Mad Dog, but he was relatively even-tempered compared to John Q. Trapp. The power forward from Detroit had played at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, for the San Diego (later Houston) Rockets, and the Lakers, for whom he had averaged 13.1 minutes and 5.7 points per game. According to Carter, "Trapp played with a chip on his shoulder, but it was too big."
On December 20, at Cobo Hall (now Huntington Place) in Detroit, during a game the 76ers would lose, 141-113, Rubin tried to sub Trapp out. When he got back to the bench, Trapp pointed to the stands, and told Rubin to look at the man he was pointing to. That man opened his jacket, to show a gun. Rubin left Trapp in the game. He played in 5 more games, released after the January 2 loss in Buffalo.
After the win in Seattle on January 7 came 20 straight losses: 4-58. On January 21, at 4-47, Rubin was fired, and Loughery was made player-coach. Then they went on a hot streak, going 5-2: They beat the Milwaukee Bucks at home on February 14, the Detroit Pistons at home on February 16, the New York Knicks at home on February 18, the Portland Trail Blazers on neutral ground in Pittsburgh on February 25, and the Baltimore Bullets at home on February 28.
They were 9-60. Had they finally turned the corner? No: They lost their last 13 games, finishing at 9-73, shattering the league record for fewest wins in an 82-game schedule, which had been 15, against 67 losses, by the expansion Cleveland Cavaliers in 1970-71. The Sixers did not have the excuse of being an expansion team.
Loughery was offered a lifeline, by the ABA's New York Nets, and he led them to the title there in 1974 and 1976. The Sixers hired Gene Shue. In 1973-74, he got them to 25-57, which would ordinarily be a horrible season for an NBA team, but represented a 16-game improvement for this one. In 1974-75, they improved to 34-48. In 1975-76, they were above .500, 46-36, and reached the Playoffs.
In 1977, having gotten rid of all the players from the 9-73 season, and obtained future Hall-of-Famers Julius "Dr. J" Erving and George McGinnis, plus good players in Henry Bibby, Doug Collins, Darryl Dawkins, Mike Dunleavy Sr., Lloyd "World B." Free, Caldwell Jones, and Joe "Jelleybean" Bryant -- soon to be Kobe's father -- Shue took the 76ers all the way to their 1st NBA Finals in 10 years. They won the 1st 2 games, but lost the next 4 -- to the Portland Trail Blazers, whose head coach was... Dr. Jack Ramsay. Still, it started the Sixers' best era: 7 seasons, 4 appearances in the Finals, and the 1983 NBA Championship.
In 1999, the Vancouver Grizzlies went 8-42. In 2012, the Charlotte Bobcats went 7-59. But those seasons were shortened by work stoppages. In a full season, the '73 76ers' 9-73 remains the worst season ever. The 76ers themselves had the most serious challenge to that, in 2015-16, finishing 10-72. The Dallas Mavericks had back-to-back seasons of 11-71 in 1992-93 and 13-69 in 1993-94. The 1997-98 Denver Nuggets also went 11-71, and the 1986-87 Los Angeles Clippers and 2009-10 New Jersey Nets had 12-70 seasons.
Philadelphia has had several dubious sports distinctions. The Phillies have the most all-time losses of any team in Major League Baseball The 1916 Athletics have the worst winning percentage in American League history. From 1918 to 1948, the Phillies finished over .500 only once, in 1932. From 1934 to 1947, 14 straight seasons, neither the Phils nor the A's finished .500 or better, a record for a 2-team city.
The 1930-31 Quakers have the fewest wins in an NHL season, and had the worst winning percentage in NHL history until, and still have it except for, the 1974-75 Washington Capitals. The 1933 Eagles have the worst first-game-in-team-history loss ever, 56-0 against the New York Giants. The 1961 Phillies have the longest MLB losing streak of the 20th Century, 23 games. And the 1964 Phillies blew a 6 1/2-game lead in the National League with 12 games to play.
In 2014, the 76ers lost 26 straight, setting a record for North American major league sports in a single season, And in 2015, wrapping from the end of 2014-15 to the start of 2015-16, they set an overall losing streak record of 28. And they still haven't won a Championship since 1983, nor been to the Finals since 2001.
However, those 2 teams that won the title, in 1967 and 1983, are both considered among the greatest single-season teams in NBA history. So, from their inception in 1963, even if you don't count their previous tenure, back to 1949, as the Syracuse Nationals, the Philadelphia 76ers have a lot of history. But it's like the girl in the nursey rhyme, the one with the curl in the middle of her forehead: When they've been good, they've been very, very good; but when they've been bad, they've been horrid.
*
March 25, 1973 was a Sunday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. These other NBA games were played that day:
There were 6 games played in the NHL:
* The New York Rangers lost to the Minnesota North Stars, 2-1 at Madison Square Garden.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Buffalo Sabres, 6-1 at the Boston Garden.
* The Philadelphia Flyers beat the St. Louis Blues, 5-2 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Atlanta Flames, 4-2 at The Omni in Atlanta.
* The Chicago Black Hawks beat the Montreal Canadiens, 6-5 at the Chicago Stadium. This turned out to be a preview of the Stanley Cup Finals, but the Canadiens won that.
* And the California Golden Seals beat the Detroit Red Wings, 8-5 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.
And there were 5 games played in the World Hockey Association:
* The New York Raiders lost to the Winnipeg Jets, 8-4 at the Winnipeg Arena.
* The Alberta Oilers beat the Quebec Nordiques, 5-4 at the Colisée de Québec.
* The Ottawa Nationals beat the Minnesota Fighting Saints, 6-1 at the Ottawa Civic Centre (now the TD Place Arena).
* The Cleveland Crusaders beat the Houston Aeros, 4-2 at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston.
* And the Los Angeles Sharks beat the Chicago Cougars, 1-0 at the Los Angeles Sports Arena.
No comments:
Post a Comment