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Ranking The 10 Worst Teams In Denver Nuggets History

By Eric Meyer

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And now we come to the team that, in my opinion, was the WORST team in Denver Nuggets history…

1. 1997-1998 Denver Nuggets:

11-71 (second-worst record in NBA history) — Last place in every division on the planet.

This joke of an NBA basketball team was coached by former Nuggets pest Bill Hanzlik and they couldn’t throw the ball into the ocean from a cruise ship. They also couldn’t guard a Rec League team from the Denver Athletic Club. This team averaged only 89.0 points per-game and they gave up 100.8 ppg — an 11.8 point difference. This means that in every game the Nuggets played, they were virtually blown out in all of them. The average margin of loss is still one of the worst in NBA history. The ironic thing about this team is that they went into the last 15 games of the season with a miniscule eight wins and on pace to be worse than the 1972-1973 Philadelphia 76ers, who won only nine games on the season. But with the luck of the Irish (Hanzlik), and play that was uncharacteristic of this team, they won three of their last 12 to keep themselves from being a really bad part of NBA history. This was by far and away the worst roster in the history of the Nuggets (and maybe the League), as the only watchable player on this team was LaPhonso Ellis (although the great Eric Williams of Celtics fame was the team’s leading scorer). Other amazingly bad players on this team included Dean Garrett, Bobby Jackson, Johnny (Hello) Newman, Eric Washington and of course, Tony ‘El Busto’ Battie (See picture above.). This was the hardest season of Nuggets basketball I have ever watched (and I didn’t watch much). The sad thing is, having the worst record in the league did not translate into a superstar draft pick in the 1998 draft — the Nuggets took another ‘El Busto’ with the third pick (Raef LaFrentz) and left Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Dirk Nowitzki and Paul Pierce on the board.

1997-1998 Statistical Leaders:

Scoring: Williams 19.8 ppg; Rebounding: Garrett 7.9 rpg; Assists: Alexander 6.0 apg; Blocks: Garrett 1.6 bpg

So as bad as this season may seem, the 2014-2015 Denver Nuggets are not the worst team in franchise history, in my opinion. Be happy that we aren’t witnessing one of the other versions of the Nuggets noted in this article because I have seen them all and some were not very much fun to watch!

Photo Credits to USA Today and the Denver Nuggets Archives.

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