by Matt Rooney
Bad Chemistry, subpar drafting, careless trading and gigantic egos. Every year, there are a few teams full of these qualities. Sometimes, one of these teams will make a trade or vote out a captain and it vaults themselves back into contention. Often times, however, the opposite happens, and the move (or lack thereof) just makes things worse.
As the NSL's 8th season is set to start up in May, let's take a trip down memory lane and check out the 8 worst squads in league history.
8. Team Hano '15 (13-22)
This team may not have been the worst squad in NSL history, but they were definitely one of the most disappointing. To start the season, Team Hano had Hano Garcia, Andrew Waterhouse, Chris Ng and Jack Whalen. Jack and Chris were two of the 4 best three point shooters in the league (both % wise and totals), Hano was a good do-it all type player - averaging 12.5ppg, 8.9rpg and 2.3apg - and Waterhouse was an athletic big who flashed potential. However, it just wasn't working out. By midseason, Jack and Waterhouse had each demanded a trade and Team Hano had an ugly 6-17 record.
To shake things up, Hano first opted to ship Chris and Waterhouse for Nathan and Kyle. But, they ended up losing the next 3 games so clearly, that didn't really do much. A few days after Hano traded Chris away, Henri requested a trade from his team, so Hano pounced. He traded away Nathan and Jack in exchange for Rousseau and Erick HF, forming what looked to be a superteam. They went on to win 7 of their final 9 games of the season, however, they were knocked out in the first round of the playoffs by the eventual champion, Team David.
Team Hano was just an awful team for most of the year, and while they really picked it up at the end of the season, it was the classic story of "too little, too late".
7. Team Henri '16 (7-21)
2016 Team Henri takes the 7 spot on this list. They opened the season with Henri Rousseau, Erick HF, Aidan Leary, Nov Levi and SeungYeop Kang on the squad. The team was talented, and Henri was a bonafide superstar, but they ended up losing 8 of their first 10 games. During this time, they were plagued by poor attendance, as Nov and Henri struggled to show up consistently.
Unlike some of the other teams on the list who made a trade every other week, Team Henri only made two trades the entire season: Nov and SeungYeop for Spencer Checkaway and Andrew Waterhouse and then Spencer for Cian and the rights to Yagev (who was in Israel).
The trades helped in terms of attendance, but really didn't do much in the win column, as Team Henri struggled to a 7-21 record. They were swept in the first round of the NSL playoffs by Matt, Aidan, Chris and Charlie despite Fogel going off for 33 and 34 points in the two games.
Cian, Henri, Waterhouse and Leary all shot 33% or lower from 2 and 25% and lower from 3, as this was one of the worst shooting teams of all time. They had two of the top 6 players on the final player power rankings from this season (Henri and Erick), so they really should have been much better record-wise.
6. Team Dorval '21 (3-13)
Team Dorval would have been even lower on this list had it not been for their upset in the play-in game of the playoffs over Team Henri and their Game 2 victory over the eventual champion, Team Matt.
Team Dorval was led by Arik Avramovich and Andrew Dorval, and had an absolutely awful start to the year, losing their first 10 games. They were getting blown out by scores such as 44-30, 53-39, 46-35 and 48-37.
After this brutal start, Dorval started looking into acquiring players such as Thomas Rooney and SeungYeop Kang throughout the season, but ultimately stood pat.
However, by late May, Arik had started to catch fire, Dorval started to lock up on D, Will Brown brought insane energy and Diggy couldn't miss from deep as Team Dorval went on to win 3 straight before falling back down to earth and losing their final 3 of the season. They then beat the two headed monster of Henri Rousseau and Zach Goldan in the play in game before losing to Team Matt in 3 games. Overall, they had a -8 net rating, and the worst offense in the league by a wide margin.
Arik averaged 20.8ppg and 9.9rpg, Diego dropped 10.1ppg, Dorval averaged 12.6ppg and 7.3 rpg, and Will Brown went for 8.5ppg and 8.8rpg. However, one of the big issues was three point efficiency as Arik, Digeo, Dorval and Will shot 27, 24, 21 and 19%, respectively, and passing, as they averaged just over 4apg combined.
Despite going 5-5 in their final 10 games (including playings), this was just not a good team.
5. Team Jack '19.1 (1-5)
In Tourney 1 of NSL in 2019, Jack Whalen put together a team of himself, Henri Rousseau, Andrew Dorval and Will Brown. The team was talented, but the Jack/Henri, Dorval/Jack and Dorval/Will pairings have proven not to work year after year. Team Jack won their first game of the tourney, but then proceeded to lose the final 5, and then went one and done in the playoffs, falling to Team Greg. They ended up having the worst record out of any squad from the two completed tournaments in 2019, had a -5 net rating, and looked totally checked out by the end of the tourney.
Despite the tough season, Jack managed to have a career year, averaging 20.5ppg and shot 35% from 3 and making his first career all NSL team (2nd team). Henri averaged 19.4ppg and Dorval scored 15.8ppg, but they both shot 21 and 12% from deep, respectively.
4. Team Idi '16 (5-21)
Team Idi was originally Team Cian, led by Cian McCormack, Andrew Dorval, Yagev Levi, Aidan Nugent and Andrew Waterhouse - which looked to be a really good squad.
Cian made what was arguably the single biggest blunder of the entire season when he traded Aidan Nugent for Sam Thayer in a panic move after his team went 0-2 and Aidan averaged 4.5ppg and 6.5rpg on 14/33/0 splits. Aidan went on to make the all star game and average 14ppg and 8rpg on 55/37/63 splits, while Sam finished averaging 5.5ppg and 6.6rpg on 45/27/11 shooting splits.
After the trade, Team Cian slugged along to a 1-9 start, which led to the outvoting of Cian, giving Yagev the captaincy. By this point, Sam, Dorval and Cam were combining for 9ppg and nothing was going right. To get a scoring boost, Team Yagev signed Keyur Patel as a free agent. Keyur averaged 11ppg, but in terms of winning, this did nothing. Ultimately, this led to Yagev stepping down as captain in favor of Andrew Dorval, who immediately traded Yagev, Sam and Keyur away in a deal for Idi and Grant. This move backfired for Andrew, however, as after it was completed, Idi took power, and traded Cian - he really hated Cian - for Spencer Checkaway. Team Idi (Idi, Spencer, Dorval, Grant, Cam) struggled its way to a 5-21 finish. They lost in the play-in game of the playoffs to Team Henri by a score of 35-34 (this game was nuts because Fogel had 31 out of 35 points for Team Henri).
It wasn't all bad for Team Idi though, as Andrew Dorval beat Nate in a massive upset in the first round of the three point contest, and Idi was an absolute fan favorite who brought tons of drama to the league.
Throughout the season, Team Idi kept trying to fix itself with trades, but trades were the reason their record was so poor in the first place.
3. Roadhogs '20 (1-9)
During the COVID NSL year - where the games took place at Lincoln Elliot - it felt like the Roadhogs never won. After starting the year 1-1, Ian, Dorval, Nathan, and Eric Zhang just couldn't seem to figure it out.
Then, Eric Zhang demanded a trade, and Ian Harris ended up trading him to the Mambas for Kenny Brown. As a result, the Hogs picked up Will Brown and brought in Aidan Nugent and Erick HF, but even that didn't seem to make a difference, as they ended up losing 8 straight games to end the season.
Things were so bad on the Hogs that Kenny Brown made a twitter burner account where he continuously roasted himself and his team in order to gain attention.
Dorval averaged 16.5ppg and 8.6rpg, Aidan averaged 15.33ppg and 10.5rpg, and Nate averaged 17.3ppg, so clearly, this team had talent, but it never amounted to wins.
2. Team Jack '17 (1-10)
This team had the worst leadership in NSL history. Originally Team Fogel, they looked primed to have a solid year as they had Eric HF, Aidan Nugent, Grant Yee, Zach Goldman and Cian McCormack. Then, out of nowhere a few weeks before the season, Erick traded Zach and Aidan for Yagev and Sam, which wasn't a bad deal talent wise, but Yagev was a known team-wrecker back then, so this deal signified the beginning of the end.
After an 0-3 start to the season, and Fogel's attempt to trade Yagev for Will Brown (which was vetoed), Yagev, Grant, Sam and Cian believed that new leadership was needed and they outvoted Fogel, which led (once again) to Yagev gaining power. And so, Team Fogel became Team Levi. Yagev wasted no time and immediately traded Fogel, Sam and Cian for Eric Zhang, Jack Whalen and Spencer Checkaway. This trade led to new hope for Team Levi, as they won the first game following the trade, but the lost the next 3 - all in close games.
However, the good vibes didn't last long, and just a few days later, Yagev Levi and Hano Garcia fought in the biggest brawl in NSL history.
This led to Yagev stepping down - in wake of embarrassment - and being replaced by Jack Whalen (this wasn't the only time that Jack inherited an awful squad as captain; see #1 below). Team Jack struggled the rest of the season, marking one of the few times that a team was in last place the ENTIRE season.
1. Team Jack '15 (6-29)
The original NSL scrub squad, Team Jack was the worst team in NSL history. Originally captained by Henri Rousseau, their struggles started a few days before the season started as #1 pick, Erick HF, broke his wrist while attempting a backflip on the Newton North turf. Fogel was replaced by Yagev Levi as he recovered from his injury. However, that didn't do much to lift the play of Team Henri as Henri, Yagev, Charlie, Idi and Cam struggled to win, despite their talent.
As the losses piled up, Team Henri made a bunch of trades, bringing in stud players such as all star Nathan Greenstein, 3point sniper Jack Whalen and the DPOY Sam Thayer, but nothing helped. By late June, Jack was the captain of the team and he had recently followed through with Nathan's trade request, shipping NateDogg out for Grant Yee and Andrew Dorval to join himself, Andrew Waterhouse, Cam Forster and Charlie Lewis on scrub squad.
Trading away Nathan did nothing, as scrub squad proceeded to lose their last 12 games, and even dropped one to Nathan and Team Matt by a score of 77-12 (they also lost to Team Matt by 32 and 29 points). Then, they went on to get swept in the first round of the NSL playoffs. Scrub squad was notoriously bad, and they are the reason many following NSL teams were given that nickname in future years.
Jack Whalen led the team, averaging 16.4ppg on 41/31/55 splits, and Grant played the robin role, averaging 10.7ppg, 5.8rpg an 3.7apg. Dorval, Waterhouse, Charlie and Cam all averaged 5 points or less.
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