The Detroit Pistons will knock on the door of historic ineptitude Tuesday evening. Losers of 26 straight video games, the Pistons are one loss away from having their title etched in report books as the only house owners of the longest single-season dropping streak in NBA historical past.
Detroit will take its final swing at stopping infamy because it hosts the Brooklyn Nets at Little Caesars Area, mere miles from the place the franchise hoisted Larry O’Brien trophies in three straight a long time. Whereas these tough-nosed groups earned the proper to be circled on opponents’ calendars, the 2023-24 Pistons’ calendar has regarded far completely different — the workforce hasn’t received a recreation since Oct. 28.
However Detroit hasn’t been an innovator of unimaginable incompetence. With tonight’s loss, they might be a part of a pantheon of legendary losers from all over the world. Listed below are the longest dropping streaks in sports activities historical past. Take solace, Pistons devoted, greater losers have been right here earlier than.
NFL: Chicago Cardinals, 29 video games
If 27 basketball video games in an 82-game schedule sounds dangerous, then how about 29 soccer video games in an period of 10-game schedules? Earlier than the AFL-NFL merger, the Chicago Cardinals began the 1942 season 3-2 after they fell to the Cleveland Rams in Week 6.
Philadelphia Eagles legend Steve Van Buren scores in opposition to the Chicago Cardinals within the 1948 championship recreation. (Photograph through Getty)
Chicago wouldn’t notch one other win till Week 4 of the 1945 season. The Cardinals (who later turned the St. Louis Cardinals, who later turned the Phoenix Cardinals, who later turned the Arizona Cardinals) then completed 1945 on a seven-game dropping streak, going 1-9 and failing to make the playoffs for the twentieth straight season.
In newer historical past, the Jacksonville Jaguars reeled off a 20-game dropping streak from 2020 to 2021. A 15-game dropping streak to shut the 2020 marketing campaign positioned the Jags to draft franchise QB Trevor Lawrence however fed instantly into the putrid City Meyer period.
Sure, the Pistons will obtain the majority of dropping streak infamy in the event that they fall tonight to set the single-season report, however they’d must lose once more Thursday to the Boston Celtics in the event that they need to match the 76ers’ all-time mark. Philadelphia’s stretch spanned two seasons because the Sixers closed the 2014-15 marketing campaign on a 10-game skid after which opened the subsequent season 0-18 earlier than securing their first win in December.
These 2015-16 Sixers would go on to win solely 10 video games, the second-fewest of any workforce in an 82-game season. The report for the fewest wins was set by the 9-73 76ers in 1972-73, a workforce which set the then-NBA report with a 20-game dropping streak.
As for the present single-season report, the Pistons are at the moment tied with the 2013-14 76ers and the 2010-11 Cleveland Cavaliers at 26 losses.
A fan brings an indication bearing the fan base’s slogan “Belief the method” to a 76ers recreation in 2015. (Photograph: Mitchell Leff / Getty Pictures)
WNBA: Tulsa Shock and Indiana Fever, 20 video games
The Indiana Fever completed 2022 with 18 straight losses amid a 5-31 season, however received an opportunity to hit reset by profitable the WNBA Lottery and choosing South Carolina legend Aliyah Boston, who had simply completed one of many best NCAA ladies’s basketball runs in historical past.
However even with Boston — who was named an All-Star and received Rookie of the 12 months — the Fever’s dropping streak continued, dropping their first two video games of 2023 to match the Tulsa Shock’s dropping streak report from 2011. Whereas Boston’s presence led to an eight-win enchancment, the Fever did not make the playoffs for the seventh-straight season.
Again in 2011, the Shock completed 3-31 for an all-time WNBA-worst profitable proportion of .088. With a mismatched roster that featured 40-year-old legend Sheryl Swoopes getting back from retirement and a rookie 19-year-old future All-Star in Liz Cambage, Tulsa’s dropping streak stretched from June 21 to Aug. 25.
After popping out of retirement, Sheryl Swoopes reacts to a name within the midst of Tulsa’s record-long dropping streak. (Photograph: Shane Bevel / NBAE through Getty Pictures)
NHL: Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres, 18 video games
A COVID-shortened 2021 NHL season wasn’t quick sufficient to stop the Sabres from matching the 2003-04 Penguins’ mark. Whereas the Pens went 0-17-1, Buffalo went 0-15-3, with its 18th defeat coming in a very painful trend.
Holding a 3-0 lead coming into the third interval, the Sabres allowed three targets within the closing body earlier than Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov scored 42 seconds into additional time to increase the skid.
“It’s embarrassing,” Sabres defenseman Brandon Montour mentioned after that loss. “This complete stretch is embarrassing. Any workforce within the NHL, that’s a win.”
The streak is snapped!
The Buffalo Sabres lastly get again within the win column with a 6-1 win over the Flyers 🏒
Earlier than this win, Buffalo was on a 18-game dropping streak (one away from breaking an NHL report). pic.twitter.com/UplXeiajzL
— The Athletic (@TheAthletic) April 1, 2021
MLB: Louisville Colonels, 26 video games
Within the days of the Benjamin Harrison presidential administration, the 1889 Louisville Colonels completed with an impressively horrific 27-111 report, dropping 26 straight video games at one level.
The season started with workforce proprietor Mordecai Davidson changing himself as supervisor with Dude Esterbrook, however Esterbrook was fired after simply 10 video games. Outfielder Jimmy “Rooster” Wolf stepped into the function of player-manager, however Davidson later employed native bouncer Buck McKinney as workforce supervisor amid the dropping streak out of concern for gamers’ habits.
In later years, the Colonels employed eventual Corridor of Famers corresponding to Rube Waddell and Honus Wagner, however the franchise folded in 1899. In trendy historical past, the report has been challenged by the 1961 Philadelphia Phillies, who misplaced 23 straight, and the 1988 Baltimore Orioles, who misplaced 21 straight.
Norwich’s yo-yo between the Premier League and the second-tier EFL spanned 5 seasons from 2018 to 2022, that includes two EFL championships and two Premier League relegations due to last-place finishes.
Within the Premier League, Norwich closed its cellar-dwelling 2019-20 marketing campaign with 10 straight defeats. After getting booted to the EFL after which promoted again to the top-tier league in 2021-22, Norwich opened that season with six extra consecutive league losses to set the dreadful mark. The streak was lastly snapped with a 0-0 draw within the workforce’s seventh match, however Norwich’s first win didn’t come till its eleventh contest amid one other last-place season.
NCAA soccer: Northwestern, 34 video games
A winless season of soccer is brutal. However how about three in 4 years? The Seventies and ’80s weren’t type to Northwestern soccer, which had 4 winless seasons from 1976 to 1989 and three one-win seasons in that span. From their third recreation of 1979 to their fourth recreation of the 1982 season, the Wildcats did not report a single victory for 34 video games.
Northwestern’s Ricky Edwards scores one among 4 touchdowns to elevate the Wildcats to their first victory in 35 video games. (Photograph through Getty)
When the Wildcats misplaced their twenty ninth straight recreation to interrupt the dropping streak report, Northwestern followers sarcastically stormed the sphere and chanted “We’re the worst!” When the dropping streak was snapped in 1982, followers stormed the sphere once more, ripped out the workforce’s goalposts and threw them in Lake Michigan.
That dropping streak value coach Rick Venturi his job, as he completed his stint with a 1-31-1 report in three seasons. Venturi’s substitute, Dennis Inexperienced, had a winless first yr of his personal earlier than turning the Wildcats round in 1982. Inexperienced’s work in squeezing three wins out of that Northwestern workforce was so spectacular he was named Massive Ten Coach of the 12 months, regardless of the workforce’s eight losses.
Under the FBS stage, FCS Prairie View A&M holds an much more miserable report, dropping an astounding 80 straight video games beginning in 1989. The 1998 Panthers snapped that streak with simply 15 scholarship gamers.
NCAA basketball: Chicago State Girl Cougars, 59 video games
Chicago State ladies’s basketball skilled as steep a fall within the 2010s as any program might think about. After notching three profitable seasons in 4 years, capped by a program-best 24-win season in 2010-11, the Girl Cougars would solely win 25 video games for the remainder of the last decade. The all-time low got here in 2018, when the winless Cougars misplaced their 59th straight recreation.
The dropping streak started in 2015-16 with a seven-game skid to shut the season, then was magnified by a winless 2016-17 season earlier than the streak was snapped within the workforce’s twenty fifth recreation of the 2017-18 season, the Girl Cougars’ solely win of the season.
On the boys’s aspect, Towson owns the longest Division I dropping streak with a 41-game stretch that spanned 2011-12 to 2012-13. However since snapping that streak, the workforce has had eight profitable seasons previously decade and have been topped co-champions of the CAA in 2021-22.
Exhibition basketball: Washington Generals, 2,495 video games
The Washington Generals exist to lose. They play the roles of punching bag and straight man to the Harlem Globetrotters’ high-flying basketball comedy. All through their historical past and many various aliases, the Generals have employed aggressive basketball gamers, however almost each single one among their 200-plus annual video games ends in defeat.
Globetrotters Turbo Pearson dunks on the Washington Generals (Photograph: Erick W. Rasco / Sports activities Illustrated through Getty Pictures)
That was till Jan. 5, 1971. The Generals — who have been enjoying underneath the title and jerseys of the New Jersey Reds that evening — and the Globetrotters performed an uncommon recreation that evening, with Harlem pulling fewer stunts and fewer comedic gags than common. Globetrotters captain and workforce legend Curly Neal sat out the exhibition, and it was extra of a basic basketball recreation than most Globetrotter occasions.
Washington raced out to a lead, which wasn’t uncommon. What was uncommon was the Globetrotters dropping monitor of the rating and failing to finish their common dramatic comeback. Generals proprietor and founder Pink Klotz checked himself into the sport within the closing seconds and hit the go-ahead basket to place Washington again up 100-99.
Even after the timekeeper inexplicably stopped the clock to provide Harlem one final shot, the Globetrotters couldn’t proceed their profitable streak as the gang sat there dumbfounded. Some kids reportedly cried within the stands.
“They have a look at us like we killed Santa Claus,” Klotz later mentioned.
The 1971 win could have been one among a number of victories for the Generals, however the exhibitionists aren’t identified for his or her record-keeping expertise. Whereas some argue they’ve received as many as six video games, the 1971 streak-snapper is by far probably the most well-known. It’s been estimated that the Generals have misplaced over 19,000 different occasions.
GO DEEPER
Of their heyday, the Harlem Globetrotters have been additionally made for TV
(Prime photograph: Mitchell Leff / Getty Pictures)
