And the abyss looks back
Scarcely anyone, or so it seems, knows the best record over an 82-game NBA season. (Chicago, 1995-96, who went 72-10 and beat Seattle — remember them? — in the Finals.) But everyone can quote you the worst record: Sixers, 1972-73, 9-73, largely because the last couple of years there have been teams seemingly destined for it. In 2008-09 it was Oklahoma City, who started the season with an embarrassing 3-29 record.
And in 2009-10 it’s the allegedly-hapless New Jersey Nets, who started the season with an embarrassing 3-29 record. They are now 7-59. The 58th loss came at the hands of the Thunder, but OKC had an 11-point lead going into the fourth quarter, and the Nets lost by only two. This suggests to me that New Jersey has more hap than people think.
Over at Nets Are Scorching, they’re figuring 13-69, which would put them on par with the woeful Mavericks of ’93-’94, and better than the even-more-woeful Mavericks of ’92-’93, who went 11-71. The key, of course, is that tenth win, which should come against the Bulls on the 27th:
Once the Nets get to 9 wins, I think you are going to see a much looser team. You can see when this team gets close late, they really press and just can’t execute because of it. Once they hit the 9 win mark, I expect this pressing to disappear, and with the confidence of already beating the Bulls on the road, I think they take this one too.
I don’t expect ESPN to pick up this game, but I’ll be keeping an ear open, just in case.
