Last year, Kyle Kuzma said “Nobody wants to be that team,” referring to the one that would lose to the Detroit Pistons to end their losing streak.
The Pistons set the all-time NBA record for consecutive losses in a season at 28 in an embarrassing chapter that the players, fanbase and city would rather forget.
Kyle Kuzma may not have noticed, but his Washington Wizards weren’t much better than the Pistons last season and have officially become “that team,” the one no team wants to suffer an embarrassing loss against in this one.
And if things keep going the way they are, Detroit may have their spot in the history books usurped by the Wizards.
Wizards’ losing streak is even worse than the Pistons’
Nothing will totally erase what happened to the Detroit Pistons last season, as fans are always going to remember it as the one that was the tipping point of the Troy Weaver era and for enduring one of the worst coaching jobs in league history with Monty Williams at the helm.
But the Wizards are threatening to supplant them in the history books, carrying a 16-game losing streak for a record of 2-18, exactly where the Pistons were last season.
The Wizards are doing it in spectacular fashion, as they are not just losing, but getting hammered nearly every night.
All the losses during this 16-game losing streak have been by double digits except one, which was a nine-point loss.
The Wizards are an unbelievable –337 in point differential through 20 games. Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, the god-awful Pistons were just –179 through this point in the season last year.
Washington has a scoring margin of –16.9, which would easily be the worst in NBA history, three points worse than the 2011-12 Bobcats who are widely regarded as the worst team in league history.
Pistons fans may not believe this, but it can get worse than it was for us last season, as Washington is showing.
This is taking tanking to new heights, and I hope that like the Pistons, the Wizards are not rewarded for historic incompetence with the number one pick in the NBA Draft.
With upcoming games against Denver, Memphis, Cleveland and Boston, the Wiz’s streak is likely to balloon to 20 games at least before they get a shot at ending it against the hapless Hornets.
But just like last season, no one wants to be that team, so we could see the NBA losing streak record topple for the second season in a row. It won’t erase the Pistons from the history books, but at least they wouldn’t be at the top of a dubious list.