I recently published an article examining every NBA playoff team from the 1983-84 through 2023-24 seasons with a negative regular SRS rating (see Worst NBA Playoff Teams By SRS (1984-2024)). As I explained in that article, “SRS” is a stat which takes into account a team’s average margin and strength of schedule. The purpose of that survey was to discover the worst regular seasons teams to make the playoffs since the NBA expanded to a 16-team playoff in the 1983-84 season.
When I conducted my research for that article, I noticed that it looked at the time to be more likely than not that there would be two negative-SRS playoff teams in 2024-25. Beginning with the 2020-21 season, the NBA has employed a four-team play-in tournament, taking the teams with the 7th-10th best records in each conference with two teams from each side advancing into their respective conference playoffs. The Eastern Conference was all but certain to feature at least three teams with negative regular season SRS in the play-in tournament, including the 7th and 8th best records. As it turned out, the Eastern Conference play-in tournament did feature three teams with negative regular season SRS and one above water, but the one, the Miami Heat, had the Eastern Conference’s 10th best record out of 16 teams, and prior to 2024-25 the ’10th seed’ had never advanced from the play-in tournament into the playoffs in eight tries.
But there is a first time for everything.
The 2024-25 Miami Heat
The 37-45 Miami Heat had the 10th best regular season in the Eastern Conference, meaning that they would have to win consecutive road games in the Eastern Conference play-in tournament to advance into the 8-team Eastern Conference Playoffs. The Heat did just that, first defeating the 9th seeded Chicago Bulls 109-90 and then the 8-seeded Atlanta Hawks 123-114 to advance out of the play-in tournament and into the Eastern Conference Playoffs as the new eight-seed.
Having written the worst playoff team article, the Heat’s statistical profile struck me as peculiar. The Heat entered the playoffs with a 37-45 record, which while not unprecedented – the New Orleans Pelicans used the play-in tournament to make the playoffs with a 36-46 mark in 2021-22 – it is certainly terrible for a playoff team. But despite the Heat’s poor record, some of their advanced numbers are slightly above average. The Heat have a positive 0.11 SRS, meaning they would not have qualified for my worst playoff team survey despite their poor record (the 2022-23 NBA Finalist Miami Heat had a 44-38 record but qualified for my survey with a -0.13 SRS). Miami’s SRS is bolstered by the fact it outscored opponents by 0.56 points per game, albeit dragged down by its strength of schedule (-0.45). The Heat were further above water in Net Rating, which is simply points scored per 100 possessions minus points allowed per 100 possessions, with a mark of +0.6. Despite being the worst of the four Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament teams in terms of record, the Heat had the best SRS and Net Rating of the group (the other three play-in teams were negative in both SRS and Net). The Heat ranked 16th in SRS and 15th in Net Rating, placing them right in the middle of the 30-team NBA in both metrics.
When I saw the Heat’s strange profile, I wondered whether the Heat had the worst record of any NBA playoff team to finish the season with a positive SRS or Net Rating. My guess was yes, having recently taken a survey which involved scrutinizing NBA playoff teams with below-500 records. But there was only one way to be sure.
NBA Playoff Teams With Losing Records and Positive SRS and/or Net
To begin, I decided to restrict my survey to the 16-team playoff era, which covers 1983-84 to the present. As I noted in the SRS article, the NBA has expanded several times since 1983-84. For example, there were only 23 teams from 1983-84 through 1986-87, meaning 16 out of 23 teams made the playoffs those years. Since 2003-04 there have been 30 teams, meaning just over half make the playoffs. The play-in tournament instituted in 2021-22 changes the equation by giving the 9th and 10th best teams by record in each conference a chance to make the playoffs by winning two consecutive games (it also means that the one of the 7th and 8th ranked teams which would have made the playoffs under previous rules may miss the playoffs). It is on account of the play-in tournament that the Heat are in the 2025 Playoffs. Going back to 1983-84, I decided to identify each instance of a team with a below-.500 record and a positive SRS or NET Rating making the playoffs. You will find the complete list below.
| Season | Team | Record | SRS | Net Rtg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1984-85 | Washington Bullets | 40-42 | +0.15 | -0.3 |
| 1985-86 | Portland Trail Blazers | 40-42 | +0.61 | +1.0 |
| 1986-87 | Chicago Bulls | 40-42 | +1.26 | +1.0 |
| 1986-87 | Seattle SuperSonics | 39-43 | +0.08 | +0.4 |
| 1987-88 | New York Knicks | 38-44 | +0.14 | -0.5 |
| 1988-89 | Portland Trail Blazers | 39-43 | +0.92 | +1.4 |
| 1991-92 | Indiana Pacers | 40-42 | +1.85 | +1.8 |
| 2006-07 | Orlando Magic | 40-42 | +0.35 | +0.9 |
| 2007-08 | Philadelphia 76ers | 40-42 | +0.18 | +0.5 |
| 2024-25 | Miami Heat | 37-45 | +0.11 | +0.6 |
My hunch was correct — the Miami Heat have the worst record (37-45) of any playoff team with a positive SRS or Net Rating. As we noted above, the Heat are above water in both SRS and Net. There are only 10 instances of a sub-.500 playoff team making the playoffs with a positive SRS or Net — all 10 were in the green for SRS and eight for Net. Unsurprisingly to me — six of the 10 teams came from the 1985-89 playoffs when it was more likely for teams with sub-.500 records to appear in the playoffs due to the fact that such a high percentage of the NBA appeared in the post-season. The Miami Heat are just the third sub-.500/positive SRS and/or Net playoff team since 1991-92 and the first since 2007-08.
One reason why so few teams meet my criteria is because the vast majority of teams to make the playoffs with losing records also have negative SRS and Net ratings. We know from my SRS survey that 38 teams had made the NBA Playoffs from 1983-84 through 2023-24 with losing records and negative SRS – and I confirmed for this survey that none of them had positive Net ratings. Every playoff team in 2024-25 save for the Heat was at least .500 or better in the win-loss department, so when we combine that survey with our new one, we discover that 48 teams have made the playoffs between 1983-84 and 2024-25 with losing records (just over 1 out of 16 playoff teams on average). Of these 48 teams, just 10 have had positive SRS and eight positive net ratings.
In my SRS article, I examined how the negative-SRS playoff teams performed in the postseason. The 2024-25 playoffs are ongoing, so let us see how the previous nine playoff teams with losing records and positive SRS and/or Net ratings fared.
- 1984-85 Washington Bullets (lost East First Round 1-3 versus Philadelphia 76ers)
- 1985-86 Portland Trail Blazers (lost West First Round 1-3 versus Denver Nuggets)
- 1986-87 Chicago Bulls (lost East First Round 0-3 versus Boston Celtics)
- 1986-87 Seattle SuperSonics (won West First Round 3-1 versus Dallas Mavericks; won West Semifinals 4-2 versus Houston Rockets; lost Western Conference Finals 0-4 versus Los Angeles Lakers)
- 1987-88 New York Knicks (lost East First Round 1-3 versus Boston Celtics)
- 1988-89 Portland Trail Blazers (lost West First Round 0-3 versus Los Angeles Lakers)
- 1991-92 Indiana Pacers (lost East First Round 0-3 versus Boston Celtics)
- 2006-07 Orlando Magic (lost East First Round 0-4 versus Detroit Pistons)
- 2007-08 Philadelphia 76ers (lost East First Round 2-4 versus Detroit Pistons)
Eight out of the first nine playoff teams with losing records and positive SRS and/or Net in our sample lost in the first round of the playoffs with a combined win-loss record of 5-26. But there is one outlier in our survey. The 1986-87 Seattle SuperSonics not only advanced out of the first round by upsetting the second-seed Dallas Mavericks (55-27, 5.54 SRS, +6.2 Net) 3-1, but did one better by toppling the then-defending Western Conference Champion Houston Rockets (42-40, +0.60 SRS, +1.0 Net) 4-2 in the second round. Here, it is worth noting that the Rockets’ regular season numbers were pedestrian — but the Mavericks were an elite team in terms of record, SRS, and Net. The Sonics’ run came to an end against the eventual NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers (65-17, 8.31 SRS, +9.1 Net) 0-4 in the Western Conference Finals, but the Sonics were reasonably competitive all things considered – losing the first three games by 5, 9, and 1 before the Lakers ended the series with a 31-point blowout in game four.
(Note: The Lakers had defeated the negative-SRS Golden State Warriors in the second round, which I wrote about in my negative SRS playoff team study. I noted in a different article that the 1986-87 Lakers had one of the best championship offenses in NBA history.)
I am not too familiar with the 86-87 Sonics specifically and cannot identify any obvious reason for their playoff over-performance. They were led by a high-scoring trio of All Stars Dale Ellis (24.9 PPG, 8th in the NBA), Tom Chambers (23.3 PPG, 13th in the NBA), along with Xavier McDaniel (23.0 PPG, 14th in the NBA). Each member of the Sonics’ “big three” (of sorts) appeared in all 82 regular season games (perish the thought these days), so they did not have any dramatic injury issues. The Sonics were much better on offense (relative offensive rating +2.4) than defense (relative defensive rating -2.0), but neither number was extreme (see my article on the best NBA champion offenses and defenses for a more thorough explanation of relative offensive and defensive ratings). Interestingly, in the playoffs the Sonics were relatively better on defense (relative defensive rating -0.2) than offense (relative offensive rating -1.8), owed in large part to the fact that their big three all saw striking dips in scoring efficiency in the postseason. In the end – Seattle pulled off an objectively clear upset of the Mavericks in round one and what was at most a small upset of a mediocre Rockets team in the second round.
Is there any reason for hope for the Heat? As a threshold matter, I note that I have no special insight into this Heat team in light of the fact that I did not closely follow the NBA or watch any games this season. But based on statistics, I note that Miami’s first-round opponent, the East’s top-seed Cleveland Cavaliers, are better than the average NBA champion in terms of record (64-18), SRS (+8.81), and Net (+9.5). Moreover, as of the publication date of this article, the Heat trail the series 1-0 after the Cavaliers won game one at home 121-100. While the Heat may be slightly better than their 37-45 record would indicate, there is a gulf between their regular season and that of the Cavaliers. Heat optimists may point to the fact that the Heat made the NBA Finals as an 8-seed with a negative SRS and Net Rating just two seasons ago, I would submit that none of Miami’s opponents (including the champion Denver Nuggets) had the 2024-25 Cavaliers’ regular season profile and this Heat team does not boast one of the top 10 players in the NBA, having traded Jimmy Butler, the mercurial star of the 2022-23 team, in the middle of the season. But there is a reason they play the games, so I suppose we will see what happens.
Update
The Miami Heat were not only swept by the Cleveland Cavaliers, but were swept in historic fashion. You can read about what happened in my follow up article, 2025 Cavaliers’ Record Sweep of the Miami Heat.
