A Losing Proposition

By THOMAS BONK

Jan. 26, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

One night in the early fall of 1972 in the dank visitors’ locker room at Boston Garden, brand-spanking-new Philadelphia 76er Coach Roy Rubin couldn’t contain himself.

His team had just knocked off the Celtics in an exhibition game and Rubin felt like, well, boasting. You know what it was? It was a victory for Philly cheese steak over New England clam chowder, and Rubin could just taste it.

Gosh, Rubin hadn’t been so excited since his coaching days at Long Island University. Now, he was utterly convinced something special was going to happen with these red, white and blue uniformed 76ers.

Fred Carter had been traded to the 76ers from the Baltimore Bullets. He sat on a bench in the locker room and listened to Rubin with disbelief.

Carter knew better. Soon, everyone in professional basketball would too.

“Roy said ‘See, we can beat the Celtics . . . the hell with the Celtics . . . we can beat anybody in the league!’ ” Carter remembered.

“I looked over at my teammate Kevin [Loughery]. We caught each other’s eyes and we both said the same thing at the same time: ‘Oh, my God!’ ”

As it turned out, the 76ers had a difficult time beating anybody in the league. The 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers set a record for futility, a 9-73 record that has remained unmatched and unattainable.

For 25 years, it has stood the test of time and some really awful teams, the low-water standard by which all truly bad performances are measured.

We are reminded of those long-ago 76ers--of Carter and Loughery and LeRoy Ellis and Manny Leaks and Freddie Boyd and Dale Schlueter and Donnie May--through the exploits of the Denver Nuggets, this year’s challenger to the 76ers’ long-held NBA title of Worst Team Ever.

Even after Saturday night’s victory over the Clippers at the Sports Arena, which ended a 23-game losing streak that tied the NBA single-season record, the Nuggets are 3-38.

This keeps Denver on an exceedingly frosty 6-76 pace, one that would rewrite the record books and probably get some people fired.

In fact, sources say the vice president of basketball operations, Allan Bristow, is expected to be replaced by former Nugget player and coach Dan Issel this week.

Bristow was smiling after the victory over the Clippers.

“Do I feel good about this win?” he said. “I feel good about any win. I guess that means I haven’t felt very good this season.”

The Nuggets have five rookies on their roster and their best two players (Bryant Stith and Eric Williams) are hurt. What else do you need to know? Nothing, according to former Nugget coach Doug Moe.

“They’ve got two starters out on a team that has no starters,” he said. “They’re so bad. Once everything happened, the best they could be was garbage. Now, they’re below garbage.”

In fact, Moe is certain the 76er record is going to fall. It will be replaced by a Rocky Mountain low. Moe isn’t happy about it, though, because Bristow and Coach Bill Hanzlik are close friends.

“There’s virtually no way they can win seven games,” Moe said. “They’re going to have tough times winning one more game.”

Carter and Loughery disagree. Teammates on the 1970-71 Bullet team that made it to the NBA finals, two years later they were together again on the least successful team in the history of pro basketball.

Loughery, who watches most of Denver’s games on his satellite dish at home, said the record-holding 76ers are better than these Nuggets. Even so, he thinks the Nuggets are going to win at least 10 games.

“I hate to see anybody suffer like that, when there’s almost no chance to win a game,” Loughery said. “I would personally like to keep the record simply because I hate to see teams go through something like that.”

What Loughery went through that season with the 76ers was something of a surprise. He injured his knee and went to the All-Star game in Chicago to attend the players’ association meetings. Loughery got a phone call in the middle of the night telling him Rubin had been fired with a 4-47 record and that there would be a new coach of the 76ers--him.

His reaction?

“I was shocked,” he said. “You know what, I actually enjoyed that year when I was coaching. People say ‘How could you enjoy that?’ But I spent a lot of time scouting all the colleges because we were going to have the No. 1 pick in the draft.”

So Loughery finished out the season with a 5-26 record and the 76ers used the top pick wisely when they selected Doug Collins of Illinois State. The next season, Collins was in Philadelphia, but Loughery wasn’t. He had been traded to New Jersey.

Carter led the 76ers in scoring in 1972-73 with an average of 20 points. But the team had the worst defense in the league, giving up 116.2 points a game, won only twice on the road and led the league in roster changes with 19 players donning the 76er uniform.

For two of them--Ellis and John Q. Trapp--it must have been something like basketball whiplash. The season before, they were on a Laker team that won 33 in a row, finished 69-13 and won the NBA title.

Carter believes the 76er record for losing is safe, and for a good reason.

“It’s difficult to lose 73 games,” he said. “I know, believe me. I’ve gone through it, been there, done that.

“I can look at that Denver team and see that false effort that’s there. Playing well enough to lose or being afraid to win or just thinking they’re going to lose no matter what. I’ve seen it and I can smell it in them because I’ve been there before.”

Carter remembers many of the tribulations associated with playing for a ritual loser.

An ice storm in San Antonio delayed the 76ers’ flight to Portland, forcing them to change into their uniforms on the bus to the arena, where they promptly got whacked.

Players became accustomed to avoiding the newspapers. That’s because articles about the 76ers nearly always carried the same theme, Carter said.

“One story called us the ‘Universal Health Spa’ of the league,” Carter said. “Everybody got well when we showed up. We brought good tidings. It was like ‘We’re here, you can feel good now.’ ”

May began the season with the Hawks and beat the 76ers with an outstanding game, only to be traded to Philadelphia soon afterward.

“We fixed him,” Carter said. “That’ll teach you to beat us.”

Obviously, the Nuggets are still learning how to win. After beating the Clippers to end the 23-game streak, the players seemed to have trouble adjusting to the media attention from the swarm of cameras and reporters in the locker room.

Anthony Goldwire actually said the Nuggets have to learn “to play them one game at a time.”

LaPhonso Ellis had to stop for a moment when he was asked if he had ever thought the Nuggets would win again.

“Yes, because I’m a believer in God,” Ellis said. “And God put us in this position . . . for whatever reason I’m not sure.”

It is a position somewhat familiar to that of Clipper Coach Bill Fitch, whose Cleveland Cavalier expansion team of 1970-71 finished 15-67. And it was the Cavaliers, no longer coached by Fitch, who set the NBA record for consecutive losses with 24 in parts of the 1981-82 and 1982-83 seasons.

Fitch said there are some things a coach can do to help his players during a long losing streak.

“First of all, you keep them away from sharp objects,” he said.

One of Fitch’s tactics in Cleveland’s first year was to lighten the mood on the bench. He found a ceramic skull with a rat gnawing on it and kept the thing on the floor by the bench so the players could rub it for good luck.

On a flight to Omaha to play the Kings, the Cavaliers’ plane was diverted to Minneapolis because of bad weather and Fitch ducked into a bookstore. He bought a copy of Jimmy Breslin’s “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight” and got back on the airplane.

Fitch held up the book and showed his players.

“I said ‘Look, guys, somebody wrote a book about us.’ ”

Even with their three victories, the Nuggets are seven short of the Clippers this season, and that’s about as far as the comparisons go.

“What we’re going through is no picnic,” Fitch said. “They’ve just got more ants at their picnic than we do right now.”

Moe coached the Nuggets for 9 1/2 years and won more games with the franchise than anyone except Larry Brown. But that doesn’t mean Moe didn’t have his own experiences with bad teams. That would be the 1992-93 season, when he was 19-37 with the Philadelphia 76ers but got fired and was replaced by . . . Fred Carter. It’s a small world, isn’t it?

Moe had only one regret about his worst coaching experience. He said he simply ran out of time.

“I was sure we were going to turn it around and win the rest of our games and I would have a great record,” he said. “But I got fired. Ha! I was sure we had turned the corner and we were gonna win ‘em all.”

If there is one thing to be learned from losing in bunches, it’s that losing games probably is as contagious as winning games. And whether you’re talking Philadelphia 76ers or Denver Nuggets or anybody else who doesn’t have a sneaker on the lowest rung, there doesn’t seem to be any vaccine against it.

Maybe Goldwire’s attitude is the best way to handle the stress of losing. Now that the streak was over, would the Nuggets turn their attention to the big picture, such as trying to avoid the worst record in the history of the NBA?

“Holy cow, can’t we think about that later?” Goldwire said. “Right now, I don’t have one worry. I’d like to enjoy this because it’s probably not going to last very long.”

Fair enough. We’ll try not to see you in the record book, Anthony.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

NBA Losing Streaks

ONE OR MORE SEASONS

Longest losing streaks (x-over two seasons):

* 24--x-Cleveland Cavaliers, March 9-Nov. 5, 1982

* 23--Vancouver Grizzlies, Feb. 16-April 3, 1996

* 23--Denver Nuggets, Dec. 9, 1997-Jan. 23, 1998

* 21--x-Detroit Pistons, March 7-Oct. 22, 1982

* 20--Phila. 76ers, Jan. 9-Feb. 11, 1973

* 20--Dallas Mavericks, Nov. 13-Dec. 22, 1993

* 19--Vancouver Grizzlies, Nov. 7-Dec. 13, 1995