‘The food is bad, everything is bad’: what it feels like to be on a hopeless NBA team

Teams like Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls have gone down in history for their winning streaks. But what's it like to be on a truly terrible roster?

The business of sports is about winning. But that, of course, doesn't mean there aren't plenty of losers out there. That's most evident every year in the NBA around the first day of spring. With about a dozen games left in the regular season, it's obvious which teams are also-rans - and they have probably known that for some time. But when a team are losing and losing often, how does that affect the roster? How do the players deal with the constant lows?

When you lose," says former NBA All-Star Xavier McDaniel, it's like getting a life sentence. I knew for me, losing, it started me to drink beer. Losing created a lot of bad habits. Losing can be a disease. We were losing so much [my rookie season] that by January I was drinking beer!"