selections over the years left the team with only a few quality players. The 76ers finished the 1971–72 season with a 30–52 record and could not find a coach for the upcoming season. In desperation, management placed an ad in The Philadelphia Inquirer for a head coach. A friend of Irv Kosloff recommended Roy Rubin, the head coach at LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds. While Rubin had 11 years coaching in college basketball, he had no professional or major college experience to draw on. The Sixers, whose roster included the likes of Manny Leaks, Jeff Halliburton, Mike Price, John Q. Trapp and Dave Sorenson, started the season 0–15 and later lost 20 consecutive games. Players criticized Rubin for his sloppy practices and the lack of meaningful comments during time-outs and breaks. Dave Wohl, who was traded to Portland, called Rubin a ‘con man’. With the club record at 4–47, Rubin was fired and replaced by Sixers player Kevin Loughery. The team’s performance improved slightly, going 5–26 with a .161 winning percentage, compared with Rubin's .078 mark. In their 1st win of the season (a 114–112 victory over Houston), coach Rubin actually injured himself by pulling a leg muscle. The top statistical leaders were Fred Carter (who led the team with 20 points per game), Tom Van Arsdale (with 17.7 points per game), and Leroy Ellis (with 13.7 points and 10.8 rebounds per game). As bad as their season was, it would have been far worse if not for a 5–2 run the team put together in the last two weeks of February 1973. By Valentine's Day 1973 the 76ers' record stood at 4–58 or a .065 winning percentage which actually put on a pace to finish with an unimaginable 5–77 record. However, the team surprisingly won 5 of their next 7 games against some of the best competition in the league. 3 of those 5 wins came against teams that would eventually win fifty or more games that year – Baltimore, the 60-win Milwaukee Bucks and the 57–25 eventual NBA Champion New York Knicks. They improved to 9–60 and actually doubled their winning percentage (up from .065 to .130 during that run.) However, the 76ers lost their remaining 13 games to finish 9–73. Before the 1972–73 season the previous mark for fewest wins in an 82-game schedule was 15, and no subsequent NBA team won fewer than 22 until the 1979–80 Detroit