By Andy Charles

Well we are just past halfway through the season and it’s one of the Raptors usual Atlantic Division rivals who are making many of the headlines in the NBA, and for all of the wrong reasons.

At the 43-game mark, the New Jersey Nets were tied for the worst record in the league’s history – 3-40 – and seriously face the ignominy of being the worst team ever to play professional basketball in North America if they can’t win another six games over the rest of the season.

Bereft of top-level talent, the standout Brook Lopez apart, the Nets are on track to beat Philadelphia’s 9-73 record in the 1972-3 season (starting in the year of my birth as it happens), a quite dreadful team who somehow managed to go on a run of five wins in seven games after hitting a nadir at 4-58 with 20 games left.

Of course they went on to lose their last 13 games, having also lost their first 15, leaving me wondering just how Fred Carter managed to average 20 points in such a futile season!! NBA Predictions certainly wouldn’t have backed him to do that given his team’s results!

Lopez must know how that feels by now, though, with an inexperienced crew around him (let’s not forget he is only a sophomore pro) and with injuries having cost almost all of their starters and key bench players plenty of playing time.

Although they ended their 11-game losing streak in midweek against the Clippers (nothing to write home about really), should they lose their next two games (Washington and Philly at home) the writing will almost certainly be on the wall since February is a horror month when the Nets must face the likes of Boston, Cleveland and other red-hot teams like Charlotte.

But it is doubtful whether anyone currently with the team will be able to stop new owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who takes over at the end of the season, sweeping the staff clean when he starts work proper. A new coach and a series of high-priced free agents might be the only way to forget a 2009-10 season that could go down in the annals of horror stories across all sports.

At least in Lopez, Devin Harris and a couple of other starters forced into big minutes when they weren’t ready for it, there are a few building blocks to start with – other than that, doctor, NBA Picks suggest that this is a hopeless case!

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