Nets Showing No Signs of Life

History is beckoning for the New Jersey Nets for all the wrong reasons as they look like putting together the worst record in NBA history.

The Nets, hampered by injury and a couple of lousy trades, stand at 4-46 and need to win five more games over the rest of the season to avoid breaking the record set by the Philadelphia 76ers back in 1972-3.

The two teams have matching records after the first 50 games of the season, but the Nets are coming up on a stretch of games from Valentine's Day when the 76ers went on a run of five wins from seven outings before ending the year with 13 straight losses.

There could be hope for the Nets though as, in a strange scheduling anomaly, New Jersey will play seven out of eight games at home in the IZOD Center in the coming weeks.

However, things will not be easy for them. Just take a look at who they are coming up against in that stretch. Cleveland, Orlando, Boston, Memphis, Portland and Toronto should all be playoff teams, Miami could be, and only Washington are a team the Nets should be able to compete with.

Realistically the rest of the season looks even harder, with a majority of games being played on the road, and the Nets have managed just one away win all season. The basketball betting suggests they will struggle to pick up the wins they need to avoid setting a new low.

But if there is a bright spot it has been that the Nets have competed much better in the last couple of weeks, even if they haven't been winning. The online betting handicaps will doubtlessly be adjusted to take this into account.

No team has beaten them by double figures in over two weeks and both Brook Lopez and Devin Harris have been scoring well, although Harris could be sidelined for a while after injuring his shoulder against Detroit.

However, some of their key players could become available before the February 18 trade deadline as the Nets attempt to rebuild for next season and free up salary cap space for some big-money free agents.

You've just got to hope that the embarrassment doesn't get worse as they prepare to move to Brooklyn in a couple of years' time, or the money invested by Mikhail Prokhorov could soon be worth absolutely nothing at all.