After the glorious 2-14-off between the Washington Wizards and Detroit Pistons culminated in a blowout loss at home for the Pistons, Detroit’s remaining schedule once again comes in to the big picture as the Pistons upcoming schedule have the 6th highest remaining SOS (Strength of schedule) for the remainder of the 2023/24 season.
To illustrate this, here is the Pistons upcoming schedule, from today up to December 31st (Technically the 30th is their last game for 2023 but I digress):
2x Pacers
1x Lakers
2x 76ers
2x Nets
1x Jazz
1x Cavs
1x Knicks
1x Bucks
1x Hawks
1x Celtics
1x Raptors
Aside from the Jazz - who hold more than twice the amount of wins as Motor City’s team - there isn’t an obvious team to point to for the Pistons to grab an easy win amongst the upcoming 14 games given the rest of the teams are playoff teams or play-in teams aiming to make them. Things won’t get any easier in January as their first game in 2024 is against a competitive Rockets team.
In this doomsday scenario, where the Pistons lose all of the remaining games in the calendar year, they would definitively hold the worst consecutive losing streak for a single NBA season; the current record holder is technically the Process 76ers losing 28 games but this streak occurred over 2 seasons whereas the single longest consecutive losing streak across a single season for an NBA team is the post-LeBron Cavs and the 2014 76ers that kicked off The Process™.
The Detroit Pistons are currently on a 14 game losing streak, with a record of 2-15. They have won less games in the calendar year of 2023 (9) than the city’s NFL team, the Lions (10).
You could probably still beat us.