The Charlotte Hornets have been disappointing all season, but in a fairly standard way. When they lost on the road to the Denver Nuggets on Feb. 20, they fell to 14-40. Bad, of course, but a 21-win pace is hardly rock bottom for a tanker. They’re still four wins ahead of the Washington Wizards, after all, and remain tied with the Utah Jazz for the NBA’s second-worst record. Until that Thursday game in Denver, they were a largely unmemorable rebuilder, bad in all of the ways that we expect a young team with a new coach to be bad.

But over the past four days, the Hornets have morphed into something far more embarrassing. They haven’t just been bad, they’ve been the single worst team in NBA history. Since Saturday, Feb. 22, they have played in three games: a 53-point loss to the Portland Trail Blazers, a 42-point loss to the Sacramento Kings and a 36-point loss to the Golden State Warriors. Combined, that means they’ve lost their last three games by 131 points. That is, by far, the worst three-game stretch in NBA history according to Stathead.

In fact, it isn’t even close. Prior to Tuesday’s loss in San Francisco, the record had been held by the 2021-22 Portland Trail Blazers. Across a three-game span in April, they were outscored by 114 points. That’s a 17-point gap between the old record and the new one. The previous gap between No. 1 and No. 2, held by the Blazers again two years later, was a single point. To find a 17-point gap after the old record, you have to go all the way down to No. 18 on the list, which, conveniently enough, also belongs to the Portland Trail Blazers (who were outscored by 97 points across three games in 2006). The Hornets might have just set a record that will never be broken.

So let’s skim the list of possible explanations. Were the Hornets dealing with injuries? Well… yes, but not to the degree you’d expect. Brandon Miller and Grant Williams have both been out for the season for some time, but the Hornets have otherwise largely had their best players available. LaMelo Ball played in two of the three games, although he has been dealing with an ankle issue. Mark Williams, whose trade to the Lakers was recently rescinded due to a failed physical, played in two of the three as well, and Miles Bridges played in all three. Yes, this is a young team without much depth, and yes, there have been some injuries, but it’s not as though they’re trotting out a lineup of G-Leaguers here.

That separates the Hornets from the old record-holders, those 2022 Blazers. Portland’s streak came in the final three games of what was already a lost season. The lineups they trotted out reflected that. In the season finale against Utah, for instance, Portland used nine players. Only two of them, Keon Johnson and Brandon Williams, are currently on NBA rosters. In fact, none of their three other starters in that game (CJ Elleby, Reggie Perry and Didi Louzada) played a minute in the NBA after the 2021-22 season. Their futility makes sense in that light. Charlotte’s does not.

The schedule Charlotte has faced hasn’t exactly been easy, but it’s been far from overwhelming. The Blazers, Kings and Warriors have a combined record of 85-88. None of them currently hold top-six seeds in the Western Conference. These aren’t gimme wins, but they shouldn’t be automatic losses either, especially for a Hornets team that just beat the Lakers in Los Angeles one week ago.

Have the Hornets been notably unlucky in this span? Again… sort of. Their opponents have shot 55 of 123 on 3-pointers in their last three games, of 44.7%. The Hornets, meanwhile, have shot 26 of 112, or 23.2%. That is obviously a substantial difference, and a lot of that does boil down to luck. Whether a team makes or misses its open 3-pointers over a short sample is pretty random, and the difference here is considerable. These are, however, reasonable small-sample numbers. It’s not as though their opponents have made 60% of their 3s across this stretch. They’ve just made their 3-pointers at roughly the same rate Nikola Jokić does.

Even if the numbers they can’t control are out of whack, the ones they can are hardly favorable. They have turned the ball over 61 times in the last three games whereas their opponents have done so 49 times. Their opponents have 157 rebounds. They have 124. Those opponents have nearly doubled up the Hornets in assists, 107 to 61. Aside from fouling, there really isn’t a single statistical area in which the Hornets have played well across this stretch.

Put all of this together and you wind up with history, and it’s history that may yet build. On Thursday, the Hornets travel to Dallas to face the Mavericks. The four-game record for worst point-differential is -127, which the Hornets have already broken. Therefore, should Charlotte lose to Dallas by literally any margin, they will claim the four-game margin. Fortunately, the five-game record is -157, so Charlotte has a little bit of wiggle room to avoid that dubious distinction, especially with the Wizards coming to town on Saturday. However, Charlotte is already tied for the two-game record at -95 thanks to those losses to Sacramento and Portland, so when the dust settles, the 2024-25 Hornets will likely hold the records for the worst two-, three- and four-game stretches in NBA history. That is no longer standard disappointment. That’s a historic debacle.