The Wizards were blown out by 36 points to the Dallas Mavericks Thursday night to the tune of a 136-101 loss. It was actually much worse than that, as the Mavericks once held a 42-point lead on the road against the Wizards, who have now matched a franchise-record 16 consecutive losses.
To put the magnitude of this into perspective, the Los Angeles Dodgers have won a game more recently than the Wizards. It's only by a matter of hours, as the Wizards won a game against the Hawks on Oct. 30, just a couple of hours before the Dodgers clinched their World Series title at 11:50 p.m. ET with a 7-6 win against the New York Yankees in Game 5, but the sentiment still stands!
We knew this Wizards team -- filled with young players, veteran castoffs and empty-calorie scorers such as Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma -- was going to be bad, but I didn't think they'd be in the conversation for worst team in NBA history. With 16 straight losses under their belts, the Wizards are inching uncomfortably close to the league's all-time record, which was set by the Pistons just last season with 28 losses in a row.
It's possible the Wizards will pick up an unexpected win to end the streak, but with the way the rest of their schedule looks to end December, the chances are very few and far between. Washington's next game is against the Nuggets, followed by three games against the Grizzlies, Cavaliers and Celtics. All four of those teams have winning records, and assuming they're relatively healthy to field a competitive squad against the Wizards, I don't see the streak ending there.
The first viable option for the Wizards to win what would be just their third game of the season is Dec. 19 against the Hornets at home. Injuries have ravaged Charlotte, and with LaMelo Ball likely still out with a calf strain, there's a good possibility Washington could end this awful streak. If it doesn't happen then, the Wizards will then have to face the Bucks and Thunder -- two teams they likely won't beat -- before getting another crack at the Hornets again on Dec. 26.
If Washington can't beat the Hornets in either meeting to end the streak, we may be looking at record-breaking territory. The Wizards close out 2024 with a pair of games against the Knicks and then face the Bulls on New Year's Day. They next have a pair of games against the Pelicans, with the first meeting serving as what could be the record-tying game for the Wizards if they keep on losing. The Pelicans are in just as bad a shape as the Hornets, so there's a chance the Wizards could end the streak there if they get that far down this hole.
But anything's possible in this league, so you can't count out the Wizards from beating a team they have very little chance against. But seeing as six of the teams they face over the next couple of weeks have already beaten them by an average of 20.4 points, those chances look grim.
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