Blazers, Scoot Henderson Set NBA Futility Records Against Miami

A rough, listless loss to the Miami Heat would be bad enough in the Portland Trail Blazers’ lost season. But they added a few new NBA records, to boot.

Portland’s 142-82 loss to Miami Friday night is now tied for the seventh-worst margin of loss in NBA history. Adding insult to injury, there are only nine losses by 60 or more points, and Portland owns the wrong end of three of them. Two of those are in the past three months. On January 11, the Blazers lost 139-77 to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the fifth-worst loss ever.

That combination of losses has led to an ignominious feat: With Friday’s lopsided loss, the Blazers became the first team in the NBA to have to 60+ point losses in one season.

Scoot Henderson set an uncomfortable NBA record of his own. By finishing the game with a -58, he broke the record for the worst single-game plus-minus score in league history. In a disastrous game like this, that is obviously a team-based stat more than a personal one, but nonetheless it joins the record books. Henderson also was tied for the second-worst plus-minus, a -57 (in ten fewer minutes) in the aforementioned OKC loss.

The 2023 third pick, Henderson’s up-and-down rookie season has underwhelmed from his high draft position. He’s averaging 13.3 points on 38% shooting (30.5% from three), with 4.9 assists.

The Blazers hope to avoid breaking any more records Monday night in Orlando.