Roy Rubin is a former college and professional basketball coach.
He coached the 1972-1973 Philadelphia 76ers — the worst team (a 9-73 win-loss record) in the history of the NBA — for the first 51 games of the season, after which he was fired and replaced with Kevin Loughery. His record was 4-47.
Rubin had been a highly successful college coach at Long Island University with a winning percentage just short of .650 in 11 years. Before then, he had coached at Christopher Columbus High School in New York City. He was known as a defensive genius, and had even written a book on how to play defense.[1]
However, he walked into an impossible situation in Philadelphia. Only six years removed from winning the NBA title with the best record in league history, the roster had been decimated due when several trades by general manager Jack Ramsay backfired, most notably that of Hall of Famer Wilt Chamberlain.
For all intents and purposes, the Sixers' season ended when Billy Cunningham bolted to the American Basketball Association on the day Rubin was hired, leaving Rubin with a roster consisting of Hal Greer and little else. An 0-15 start started a watch of just how bad the team could get. After 51 games and a 4-47 record—and while in the midst of what would become a (then)-record 20-game losing streak—Rubin was fired in favor of player-coach Kevin Loughery.
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