5 longest losing streaks ever in NBA history 

#3 Cleveland Cavaliers: 1981/82 & 82/83, 24 Games

The Cleveland Cavaliers' roster in 1982-83.

The perfect example of how bad ownership can completely derail a team. Under the ownership of Ted Stepien, the Cavs plummeted to the bottom of the league. Stepien would often trade away draft picks for marginal veterans and it unsurprisingly backfired.

The Cavs were terrible in his 3-year tenure as owner and a 28 win season in his first year, was a sign of much darker times to come. The following year, the Cavs hit rock bottom and it felt like things couldn't get much worse when they were 15-48, but it sure did. They proceeded to lose the remaining 19 games to finish with a pathetic 15-67 record, but hey, they could draft a top prospect thanks to that maybe? Nope. The 1982 1st round pick had been traded to the Lakers for Chad Ford (who?) and the Lakers promptly used the Number 1 pick in the draft on James Worthy.

The losing carried on to the next season of course and as if it was meant to be, the Cavs broke Detroit's record of 21 losses in a row by losing to the Pistons 128-119 to set the new mark just one season after Detroit's infamous run. Two more losses followed after which they finally won in OT over the Warriors.