Ranking The 10 Worst Teams In Denver Nuggets History

9. 1979-1980 Denver Nuggets:

30-52 — 3rd Place in the Midwest Division.

The 1979-1980 team was coached by future NBA Executive of the Year, Donnie Walsh, and his lead assistant was future Nuggets head coach Doug Moe. This team was another underachieving team as they had three future Hall-of-Famers on this squad — Dan Issel, David Thompson and Alex English. It is maddening to think that a team with three future HOFers could be this bad, but there were several reasons for the horrid season. David Thompson was already engaged in his battle with cocaine addiction and was not the same player he had been in leading the Nuggets to two consecutive ABA Championship Series in the mid-70’s. English played in only 24 games due to injury that season and other than the “Big 3”, the roster was mostly devoid of talent. English, Issel and Thompson all averaged over 20 points per-game and this team could score, but they gave up an average of 107.6 points per-game while scoring only 103.4 ppg. Defense was the Achilles heal of this team and it didn’t help that they had the big locker room cancer George McGinnis on the team as well. Walsh would survive the season, but was fired only 31 games into the 1980-1981 season and replaced by the legendary Doug Moe.

1979-1980 Statistical Leaders:

Scoring: Issel 23.8 ppg; Rebounding: McGinnis 10.3 rpg; Assists: Roche 6.4 apg; Blocks: Hughes 2.3 bpg

Next: This is where this list gets depressing for current Nuggets fans.....