The Worst Record in NBA History: 9-73 or 7-59?
The worst record in NBA history is 9-73, set by the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers. The worst winning percentage in NBA history is .106, set by the 2011-12 Charlotte Bobcats at 7-59 — in a season that was only 66 games long because of a lockout.
Both statements are true and most articles on this question pick one without mentioning the other. The season-length difference is the whole story, and it is what separates a careful answer from a wrong one.
The bottom of the record book
| Season | Team | Record | Win % | Games in season |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011-12 | Charlotte Bobcats | 7-59 | .106 | 66 (lockout) |
| 1972-73 | Philadelphia 76ers | 9-73 | .110 | 82 |
| 2015-16 | Philadelphia 76ers | 10-72 | .122 | 82 |
| 1947-48 | Providence Steamrollers | 6-42 | .125 | 48 (BAA) |
| 1992-93 | Dallas Mavericks | 11-71 | .134 | 82 |
| 1997-98 | Denver Nuggets | 11-71 | .134 | 82 |
| 1986-87 | Los Angeles Clippers | 12-70 | .146 | 82 |
| 2009-10 | New Jersey Nets | 12-70 | .146 | 82 |
| 1998-99 | Vancouver Grizzlies | 8-42 | .160 | 50 (lockout) |
Three of the nine worst percentages in league history came from seasons that were not 82 games. That is not a coincidence. A shorter schedule is a smaller sample, and smaller samples produce more extreme percentages at both ends of the distribution — the same reason the best winning percentages in league history also cluster in odd seasons.
Pro-rate the Bobcats and the gap disappears
Charlotte won 10.6% of its games. Over 82 games that is 8.7 wins, which rounds to a 9-73 season — the exact record Philadelphia posted in 1972-73.
| Measure | 1972-73 76ers | 2011-12 Bobcats |
|---|---|---|
| Record | 9-73 | 7-59 |
| Win percentage | .110 | .106 |
| Games played | 82 | 66 |
| Pro-rated to 82 games | 9-73 | 8.7-73.3 |
| Scoring margin per game | -12.1 | -13.9 |
| Longest losing streak | 20 | 23 |
The two are separated by four thousandths of a winning percentage. Anyone declaring one definitively worse than the other on record alone is reading precision into a number that does not have it.
Scoring margin breaks the tie, and it breaks it toward Charlotte. The Bobcats were outscored by 13.9 points a game, scoring a league-worst 87.0 and allowing 100.8. Philadelphia’s margin was -12.1. Margin is a more stable measure of quality than record because it does not depend on how the close games happened to fall, which is why it is the tiebreaker worth using here.
What 9-73 actually looked like
Philadelphia opened the 1972-73 season with 15 straight losses. They went 2-36 on the road. They finished 59 games behind the division-winning Boston Celtics, still the largest gap between a first-place and last-place team in league history.
Roy Rubin, hired from Long Island University with no professional coaching experience, went 4-47 before being replaced by guard Kevin Loughery as player-coach. Loughery went 5-26 the rest of the way. Fred Carter led the team at 20 points a game on a roster that had been stripped of every piece of the 1967 title team except Hal Greer, who was 36.
Their 20-game losing streak was the longest anyone had recorded in a single season at that point. It has since been passed several times over, as covered in our guide to the longest losing streaks in NBA history.
What 7-59 actually looked like
Charlotte’s version was compressed rather than drawn out. The lockout pushed the 2011-12 season into a 66-game sprint starting on Christmas Day, with more back-to-backs and less practice time than a normal year — conditions that punish thin, young rosters harder than deep ones.
The Bobcats, coached by Paul Silas and owned by Michael Jordan, were eliminated from playoff contention on March 28 at 7-41. They then lost their final 23 games, and the streak did not end until November 2 of the following season.
Gerald Henderson led the team at 15.1 points a game. No Charlotte player averaged 16.
Why nobody has lost more than 73
The NBA has played an 82-game schedule since 1967-68, so 73 losses has been beatable for nearly six decades and nobody has done it. The 2015-16 76ers got to 72. The floor is real, and it exists for a structural reason: even a roster assembled with no intention of winning is made of professional basketball players, and across 82 games some opponent will be on a back-to-back, or resting starters, or shooting 28% from three.
That floor is the mirror image of the ceiling this site is built around. The best record ever is 73-9, held by the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors, and the worst is 9-73. The league’s extremes are almost perfectly symmetrical, and both stop nine games short of perfect.
Whether anyone could go all the way to the bottom is a separate question, and one people actually search for. We answered whether a team has ever gone 0-82 with the math on how far off the record actually is.
The most recent contenders
No team has approached the record in the modern era. The 2023-24 Detroit Pistons finished 14-68 despite a 28-game losing streak, the longest single-season skid ever recorded. The 2024-25 Utah Jazz and 2025-26 Washington Wizards both closed at 17-65 for the league’s worst mark in their respective years.
Draft lottery reform is a large part of why. Since 2019 the three worst records share identical 14% odds at the top pick, which removes the incentive to be the single worst team rather than merely one of the worst. The floor got softer for the same reason the ceiling did not move.
Want to see how a five-man lineup holds up across a full simulated season? Draft one and find out.
Frequently asked questions
Why did the 1972-73 76ers collapse so completely?+
The roster had been dismantled. Philadelphia had traded Wilt Chamberlain in 1968 and lost Billy Cunningham to the ABA before the 1972-73 season, leaving 36-year-old Hal Greer as the only holdover from the 1967 championship team. Coach Roy Rubin, hired out of Long Island University with no NBA experience, was fired at 4-47.
Which team has the fewest wins in a single NBA season?+
The 1947-48 Providence Steamrollers, with 6, in the Basketball Association of America. That season was only 48 games long. Among teams playing a modern-length schedule, the 2011-12 Bobcats' 7 wins is the lowest, followed by the 1972-73 76ers' 9.
Has any NBA team lost more than 73 games?+
No. Seventy-three is the ceiling, set in 1972-73 and approached in 2015-16 when Philadelphia lost 72. Because the NBA schedule has been 82 games since 1967-68, a team would need to finish 8-74 or worse to break it, and nobody has come within a game.
Do lockout seasons belong in the same record book?+
Reference sites list them together, which is why the 2011-12 Bobcats appear at the top of worst-percentage lists. The honest reading is that a 66-game season is a smaller sample, so extreme percentages at both ends are easier to reach. The same logic applies to the 1998-99 Vancouver Grizzlies, who went 8-42 in a 50-game season for a .160 percentage.
What did the worst teams get out of it?+
Different eras handled it differently. In 1973 the top pick went to whichever conference last-place team won a coin flip; Philadelphia won that flip and drafted Doug Collins first overall, and he became a four-time All-Star for them. Charlotte, with the worst record in 2012, got no such guarantee — the lottery dropped the Bobcats to second, and they took Michael Kidd-Gilchrist behind Anthony Davis.