Since the NBA season has begun the Washington Wizards have only won 11 games and are, record-wise, the worst team in the NBA. Prior to their March 8 win vs the Charlotte Hornets they went the whole month of February without a win, with their most recent victory before the Charlotte game coming on January 29 in a 118-113 victory over the tanking San Antonio Spurs.
Their losses since then have come at the hands of top heavy teams like the Nuggets, Celtics, and Thunder but also at the hands of the Jazz and a Joel Embiid-less 76ers team.
Throughout the season, the Wizards have had a net rating of -9.7 which is the second worst in the league only ahead of the Charlotte Hornets. A 121.3 defensive rating, being the second worst in the association, is only making the team worse.
Along with having one of the worst defenses in the league, Interim Coach Brian Keefe has his squad at a league-worst 45.7% rebounding percentage. With big man Daniel Gafford being traded to the Dallas Mavericks at the deadline, that percentage is not going up any higher.
The defense has been horrendous this year, and the offense hasn’t been anything special either. They’re sitting at a 111.4 offensive rating which puts them at the 5th worst in the league. Before the season, the offense was set to be revamped with two former NBA champions in Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma joining the team, but that hasn’t been the case at all. With Poole having his worst season since coming out the G league in 2021 and Kuzma scoring on below average efficiency, this offensive tandem has been lackluster so far.
On December 28, Kyle Kuzma quote tweeted a picture of the Detroit Pistons leading the Boston Celtics during their historic losing streak and said, “It’s almost like don’t be that team.” Since that point, the Pistons have won 6 more games than the Wizards and Washington’s 15-game losing streak put them in an interesting position where they could have gotten to the all-time record, which was set by the Pistons earlier this year, in their March 29 meeting with Detroit. Their win against Charlotte finally ended that possibility.
