By the Numbers: The Worst Teams of the 2013-14 NBA Season

If we were putting together a list of the worst NBA teams of all time, the 2013-14 Bucks would have to be on it. They're not as bad as, say, the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers or the 1997-98 Denver Nuggets. But they went 15-67 this season, and 15 wins is sort of the benchmark for sucking. If you make it to 16 wins, you're bad but you're not that bad. Fifteen wins, on the other hand, earns you a place in history.

Spoiler alert: We are not going to name the Bulls the worst team in the NBA (duh). They're actually one of the best teams in the East and a team that could pose a problem for the Indiana Pacers in the second round of the NBA Playoffs, assuming they both make it that far. But the Bulls proved one thing by averaging a league-worst 93.7 points per game this season—that you're only allowed to have an offense as bad as theirs if you also have a defense that only gives up 91.8 points per game and ranks right at the top of the league. Take note, bad teams: If your offense sucks, your defense can't suck, too.

The good news for the Sixers was that they didn't have a ton of trouble scoring this season. They actually averaged 99.5 points per game (so close to 100!) and routinely put up more points per game than playoff teams like the Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers, and Chicago Bulls. But unfortunately, they couldn't stop anybody and allowed opposing teams to score 109.9 points per game while shooting about 47 percent from the field. So even though they put up points, they also gave up way too many buckets, which is why they lost so often during the second half of the season.

Even when the Sixers won this season, they actually lost. Philly was thisclose to breaking the Cleveland Cavaliers' record for the all-time longest losing streak in March when they blew out the Detroit Pistons to snap a 26-game losing streak. So now, they'll have to settle for being tied with the Cavs atop that list of lovable losers.

Good NBA teams can win anywhere. Bad ones can't even win at home. And the Bucks and 76ers proved that this year by assembling 10-31 home records. Neither team was much better on the road (the Sixers were 9-32, while the Bucks were 5-36) but their inability to protect their home-court advantage was a clear sign that both teams were terrible this season.

The league's better teams looked forward to playing against the Boston Celtics, Orlando Magic, and Utah Jazz this season. Those three teams were a collective 25-109 against teams with a winning record. But those same teams really looked forward to playing against the Bucks, who were just 2-42 against teams above .500 this season. The Bucks were as close to an automatic W as most NBA teams got.

The best three-point shooting team in the league this season was the San Antonio Spurs, who shot almost 40 percent from behind the three-point line. They took about 21 three-pointers every game and made more than eight of them on average. The Sixers were significantly worse than that. They shot more three-pointers than the Spurs (22.5 per game) and only hit seven of them on average for a 31.2 percent three-pointing shooting percentage. That might not seem like a big difference. But over the course of a season, it adds up and results in a lot less points and a lot more wasted opportunities.

The Lakers actually grabbed more rebounds per game than teams like the New York Knicks, Atlanta Hawks, and Miami Heat. But during head-to-head matchups with other teams, they were frequently outrebounded—and outrebounded in a big way—by their opponents. They finished with an astounding -8.0 rebounds per game differential, meaning other teams typically grabbed eight more rebounds than they did per game. What makes that so bad is that the average NBA team finished with an RPG differential between +1.0 and -1.0 and that the next team above the Lakers finished with an RPG differential of -4.8. Bottom line, the Lakers need to work on their rebounding next season.

Much like the Bulls—who were featured on this list earlier because of their putrid offense—the Thunder don't belong in the same sentence as most of the teams mentioned here. But since we're talking about the league's "worst" teams, we thought we'd mention the worst behaved. And that honor goes to the Thunder who racked up 99 technical fouls this season. From Kevin Durant, who earned a league-leading 16 techs this season, to Russell Westbrook, who finished with 10 techs despite missing much of the season due to injury, OKC racked up a ton of Ts. And it could come back to bite them in the playoffs, if they'e not carefu

The Bucks tried their best to get people to come out to their games. They even went as far as to hold a special "Y2K Night" back in February, which featured a halftime performance from Coolio and an appearance from Glenn "Big Dog" Robinson. But their home attendance was, on average, still the worst in the league as they only had about 13,487 fans show up at the BMO Harris Bradley Center for their home games. People didn't show up for games when they went to other teams' arenas, either, as they only attracted about 17,013 fans when they went out on the road. That led to them having a league-low average of just 15,250 fans at their games.