Most Disappointing teams

[Diop]

Obviously these are just opinions, but having been a diehard W's fan at the time (very few of us back then), this is a very a bizarre hill to die on to me.

I was probably just biased because Mullin, Price and Sprewell were my favorite players, so I expected so much from them.
That '94 Warriors team with Spree, Mullin, Hardaway, Gugs, Marshall and Seikali, Gatling coached by Nelson was also disappointing too IMO.

I hear you, Mully was my favorite player growing up. Gugs was never going to make it on that team, Spree hated his guts because he was the guy they traded Webber for, which is why he was traded for Donyell so quickly.

The real tragedy is that Tim Hardaway got injured right before Webber's rookie season in '93 and sat out the entire year. Then Webber forced a trade out before the next season and we never got to see them play together.

Yeah that's the true GSW tragedy, whether it was Nelson or not, there was a cool situation missed there. I get trying to pair Owens and Webber but they ended up trading Owens for Seikaly to play centre anyhow.

Would have loved see Hardaway, Sprewell, Mullin, Webber and Seikaly play together. They probably might have still fought for shots, but it would have been fun as hell.

[Capn'O]

I think of the
1. 95-96 Dallas team that had Kidd, Mashburn and Jim Jackson.
Yes, Jason was just a rookie but he was 22 when he joined the league, not 18 or 19, had really good stats, went to the AS.
The previous season Jim just averaged 25.7 pts but still managed to put up nearly 20pts 5 reb/3 apg.
Mashburn just had a 24/4/4 before Kidd joined the team, still averaged 23/5.5/2.8
The team also benefitted with George McCloud a sharpshooter who attempted nearly 9 and had shot a good 38% which gave them 19pts/game.
For that kind of firepower and Kidd leading the offensive attack with 17, 10 assist and 7 rebs, you would think they will be top 5 easily in ORTG but shockingly, the Mavs team only ranked 19th and just won 26 games and lost 56.

Spree hadn't yet learned to put mustard on his passes


This Mavs team was even worse than that because it was Kidd's 2nd year, not his rookie season. That said, that was the beginning of Monster Mash's injury woes.


I always felt the Rockets teams with Barkley were incredibly disappointing. Granted Hakeem fell off quick but that should have been a dominating team.

[chrbal]

All time achievement award

“Let’s bring Charlotte back to the NBA”

20 years, 3 first round exits, winning 10% of their games in their 8th season, and were probably rigged against getting Anthony Davis among so many other things you can reference

I started really paying attention to the NBA in the early 90s because of the Pistons. But still got why they were popular

[NZB2323]

1999 Rockets
2004 Lakers
2013 Lakers
2014 Nets
2021 Nets

[tamaraw08]

I was probably just biased because Mullin, Price and Sprewell were my favorite players, so I expected so much from them.
That '94 Warriors team with Spree, Mullin, Hardaway, Gugs, Marshall and Seikali, Gatling coached by Nelson was also disappointing too IMO.

I hear you, Mully was my favorite player growing up. Gugs was never going to make it on that team, Spree hated his guts because he was the guy they traded Webber for, which is why he was traded for Donyell so quickly.

The real tragedy is that Tim Hardaway got injured right before Webber's rookie season in '93 and sat out the entire year. Then Webber forced a trade out before the next season and we never got to see them play together.

Yeah that's the true GSW tragedy, whether it was Nelson or not, there was a cool situation missed there. I get trying to pair Owens and Webber but they ended up trading Owens for Seikaly to play centre anyhow.

Would have loved see Hardaway, Sprewell, Mullin, Webber and Seikaly play together. They probably might have still fought for shots, but it would have been fun as hell.

ahhh Billy Owens, before Ben Simmons there was this 6-9 guy who had this great handles, able to go court to court.
Reminds me somewhat of Danny Manning.

[Bad Bart]

I was probably just biased because Mullin, Price and Sprewell were my favorite players, so I expected so much from them.
That '94 Warriors team with Spree, Mullin, Hardaway, Gugs, Marshall and Seikali, Gatling coached by Nelson was also disappointing too IMO.

I hear you, Mully was my favorite player growing up. Gugs was never going to make it on that team, Spree hated his guts because he was the guy they traded Webber for, which is why he was traded for Donyell so quickly.

The real tragedy is that Tim Hardaway got injured right before Webber's rookie season in '93 and sat out the entire year. Then Webber forced a trade out before the next season and we never got to see them play together.

Yeah that's the true GSW tragedy, whether it was Nelson or not, there was a cool situation missed there. I get trying to pair Owens and Webber but they ended up trading Owens for Seikaly to play centre anyhow.

Would have loved see Hardaway, Sprewell, Mullin, Webber and Seikaly play together. They probably might have still fought for shots, but it would have been fun as hell.

I would have loved to have seen that 93-94 squad as built with Hardaway on it. They won 50 games with Avery Johnson, who wasn't bad, but Timmy would have been the perfect not just point guard, but player to push them into contender status. Hardaway had been All-NBA the two previous seasons, Spree was first team All-NBA that season and Webber was the big Nellie had needed for years. They also still had Mully and Billy Owens plus the very underrated Keith "Mr." Jennings off the bench. We went from that to Spree choking PJ just 4 seasons later. Alas...

[Jakay]

"They're saying us and Golden State are the super teams"

31-51

[1993Playoffs]

2018 Thunder. PG and Russ getting outplayed by rookie Donovan Mitchell

[Black Jack]

Dwight / Kobe / Nash / Gasol Lakers for me

I thought they were gonna really do something then Pringles happened.

[DusterBuster]

2018 Thunder. PG and Russ getting outplayed by rookie Donovan Mitchell

They weren't disappointing, they just weren't very good.

04 Lakers will forever go down imo as the most disappointing. Stupid stacked, but not a single thing with that team worked that whole season.

Malone averaged 24/10/5 the season before he signed with the Lakers. Payton averaged 20/4/8 his season with Seattle/Milwaukee before signing with the Lakers. Lakers still had prime Shaq, just entering his prime Kobe, 3 straight titles, AND still had the majority of their title supporting cast of Fox, Fisher, George, Grant. The only piece from most of their runs that was missing was Horry (which ended up maybe being a bigger loss than people realized).

Even with all of the "superteams" we've seen since 03, the only one that really compares is KD joining the Warriors. Even the Heatles wasn't like THAT. When the Heat got LeBron to join with Wade and Bosh, the rest of the team was ass. It didn't matter clearly because those 3 were sooooo good, but that wasn't a really super deep team until they got other guys like Ray Allen, but even then, that supporting cast was pretty meh - the top end just carreid. It never ran as deep as that 03/04 Lakers team. That Lakers team had 4 top-end guys, PLUS a supporting cast any team would have killed for...

And they lost to the Pistons.

lol

[DusterBuster]

Dwight / Kobe / Nash / Gasol Lakers for me

I thought they were gonna really do something then Pringles happened.

Funny that the Lakers had two of the most stacked teams of the 2000's and both just flamed the f out.

That Dwight/Kobe/Nash/Gasol team was nearly on-par with the 03/04 Lakers team. I have the 03/04 team still ranked higher for most disappointing because of their 3 previous titles and still having a majority of that supporting cast. For the Dwight/Nash team, they were still retooling around Kobe from the ashes of that 03/04 team after Shaq demanded out.

Typical Hollywood, making a sequel that basically is just a worse remake of the original. They even had similar storylines for why those teams didn't work (PG who's skills fell off a cliff (GP/Nash) and a bigman who's injuries caught up to him (Dwight/Malone).

[FrodoBaggins]

2018-19 Celtics. 2014-15 Bulls.

[pepe1991]

Dwight / Kobe / Nash / Gasol Lakers for me

I thought they were gonna really do something then Pringles happened.

Funny that the Lakers had two of the most stacked teams of the 2000's and both just flamed the f out.

That Dwight/Kobe/Nash/Gasol team was nearly on-par with the 03/04 Lakers team. I have the 03/04 team still ranked higher for most disappointing because of their 3 previous titles and still having a majority of that supporting cast. For the Dwight/Nash team, they were still retooling around Kobe from the ashes of that 03/04 team after Shaq demanded out.

Typical Hollywood, making a sequel that basically is just a worse remake of the original. They even had similar storylines for why those teams didn't work (PG who's skills fell off a cliff (GP/Nash) and a bigman who's injuries caught up to him (Dwight/Malone).

That Lakers 2012-13 team is bit overhyped.

Starting PG of that team was 39 years old and broke leg in second regular season game. Nash. Was cooked after that season.
Starting SG was 34 years old with so much tear on his body. Kobe. It was defacto his last (serious) season in nba, and how much they used him led into his eventual career ending injury.
Starting SF already was on brutal decline at age of 33. Year prior Artest shot 39% FG on 29% for 3 for 7,7 ppg. He got slow, wasn't even good on defense. At times his defense was fine, but often he was two-way-negative. Like Kobe, it was his last somewhat serious nba season in his career.

Starting PF, Gasol, missed 23 games. Moved to perimeter to give Howard bit spacing. Age 32.
Stating C, Howard, arrived in LA post back surgery. Moved like turtle for entire season. Lost majority of his agility & mobility that made him special prior.


And my God . That bench.
Antawn Jamison ( age 36-37) ,Jodie Meeks , Steve Blake and Earl Clark.


So, among serious 8 men rotation, 4 of them ( half) were basically retired after that year.

Some of us predicted back when that team was formed that they are simply too old to do anything. We talk about 2013, not 2023, being 33-34 in nba in 2013 was "old -fart " age. And majority of Lakers roster was older than that.

Just look at all star team in 2013. Only Kobe, Duncan, KG were older than 31 i think. Compare it to 2025 all star game with Curry, Durant, Lebron, Lillard, Harden being 35+ . And pretty much everybody else is 30 or near 30.

Lakers 2004 had more talent, they were also very old, but they went to damn finals.

Lakers 2021-22 to me is way more disappointing.
Top 5 player in his prime (AD), still top 5 player exiting prime ( Lebron ) , not that old for current age Westbrook (33), okey in smaller role but old Melo (37), Monk, Bradley, Reaves, Howard(36), Deandre Jordan, Rondo.... 33-49. Not even close to playoffs.

[GusT15]

Dwight / Kobe / Nash / Gasol Lakers for me

I thought they were gonna really do something then Pringles happened.

Injuries derailed that Lakers season more than anything all year long,with Kobe's Achilles tear in April ending them.
We did however get this gem as the Lakers season was coming to an end....

Watch on YouTube

[Yinwest]

The recent Sixers, they simply have the ability to get everything wrong, from players to front office.

[DusterBuster]

The recent Sixers, they simply have the ability to get everything wrong, from players to front office.

Actually quite surprised Morey still has a job. GM's who've had the gig for a long time all tend to flame out, feels like any magic Morey used to have is gone. Edgecome may give him a spark tho.

[Black Jack]

Dwight / Kobe / Nash / Gasol Lakers for me

I thought they were gonna really do something then Pringles happened.

Injuries derailed that Lakers season more than anything all year long,with Kobe's Achilles tear in April ending them.
We did however get this gem as the Lakers season was coming to an end....

Watch on YouTube

The funny thing about that year was people still regarded Dwight as a superstar but Duncan and then when he was in Houston Kobe just absolutely disrespected him.

The Duncan trollface and Kobe yelling Soft at Dwight are both top tier NBA memes.

The falloff in reputation was crazy, especially since he was still useful as a player. And then coming back to win a ring with the Lakers as a role player? can't script it.

Incredible athlete though, he could probably be useful as an NBA role player still if they'd let him. Kind of a Rodmanesque end to his career.

[flow]

1994-98 Washington Bullets

The hype surrounding the Bullets in the summer of 1994 after acquiring Chris Webber to pair & reunite with the just-drafted Juwan Howard was unbelievable. This was going to be the team to beat for the next decade. Scott Skiles was also acquired that summer to pair with Rex Chapman in the backcourt. The team ended up winning 21 games that 94-95 season.

Over the next 3 seasons, the Bullets would add players such as Mark Price & Rod Strickland, and draft players such as Rasheed Wallace & Ben Wallace. To no avail. When the 4-year experiment was all said & done, the team managed 1 playoff appearance and 0 playoff game wins.

.

[bstein14]

The 04 Lakers had two top 10 players of all-time (when they retired at least) in their primes (Kobe just in the beginning of his prime and Shaq at the end of his prime) only to get dominated in the Finals by a team of castoffs in Detroit.

Plus that Lakers team had two other future HOF players past their primes in Gary Payton and Karl Malone. They were heavily favored 8-1 just in that NBA Finals. Remains one of the biggest NBA Finals upsets (according to Vegas at least) of all-time.

The Pistons didn't have a player who was even considered a top 10 player in the league at that time, and of course none of them were on the NBA's top 75 players of all-time list. But they were great on defense, had a chip on their shoulder, good coaching, played balanced team ball and had great depth as well.