We're only a month into the 2023-24 NBA season and it is already one to forget for Pistons fans.
Detroit was still expected to be a rebuilding team this season after going an NBA-worst 17-65 last season, but there was hope it would start showing some promise with plenty of young pieces on its roster.
2021 No. 1 pick Cade Cunningham was ready for the start of the season after only appearing in 12 games last year due to a shin injury.
Other recent draft picks like Jaden Ivey, Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart were expected to take a step forward, and the franchise was high on the addition of 2023 top-five pick Ausar Thompson. Add in veterans like Bojan Bogdanovic (who has yet to play this season) and Joe Harris, and there was an outside chance this team could be somewhat competitive.
Through the first month of the season, that has been far from the case.
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Head coach Monty Williams hasn't found any consistency in his starting lineup or rotations and the players are already starting to lose faith in the team's competitive spirit.
“We got to be realistic about the situation. It’s hard to just be like, ‘We’re good, we’re good,’ you know what I’m saying? Because we’re bad," Cunningham told The Athletic's James Edwards following the team's 11th-straight loss back on Nov. 20.
Detroit dropped to an NBA-worst 2-17 following a loss to the Knicks on Nov. 30. After starting the season 2-1, the Pistons have now lost 16 games in a row, and their loss to New York secured a winless month of November.
The Detroit Pistons have done it. The winless month. pic.twitter.com/XRv33sEQtV
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) December 1, 2023
The winless month puts this young Detroit squad on the wrong side of history, joining some of the worst teams the NBA has ever seen in the record books.
What is the longest losing streak in NBA history?
The Pistons' 16-game losing streak is bad, but it's not the worst in NBA history.
That (dis)honor belongs to "The Process" 76ers, who lost 28 games spanning from the 2014-15 season to the 2015-16 season.
The longest single-season losing streak is 26 games, which also belongs to the 2014-15 76ers, but they share that title with the 2010-11 Cavaliers in the first season after LeBron James took his talents to South Beach.
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Here are the worst losing streaks in NBA history.
| Rank | Team | Year | Losing streak |
| 1 | Philadelphia 76ers | 2015* | 28 |
| 2 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 2011 | 26 |
| Philadelphia 76ers | 2015 | 26 | |
| 4 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 1982* | 24 |
| 5 | Charlotte Bobcats | 2012 | 23 |
| Denver Nuggets | 1998 | 23 | |
| Vancouver Grizzlies | 1996 | 23 | |
| 8 | Detroit Pistons | 1980* | 21 |
| 9 | Five teams tied | — | 20 |
*Span of two seasons
Winless months in recent NBA history
While it is hard to find concrete evidence of winless months in NBA history, there are a few recent instances from the teams featured above.
The 2023-24 Pistons' 0-15 November makes them the first team to have a winless month with at least 10 games played since the 2015-16 76ers, who also went 0-16 in Nov. 2015 as part of their infamous 28-game losing streak spanning over two seasons.
The 2010-11 Cavaliers also went an imperfect 0-16 in Jan. 2011, while the 2011-12 Bobcats closed their NBA-worst seven-win lockout season on a 23-game losing streak, going 0-16 in April 2012.