23) Aaron James (came closest: ’77-’78 with Jazz)

In the early days of the New Orleans Jazz, Pete Maravich was the biggest star but James was the true fan favorite. A local kid who attended Cohen High School and then Grambling State, James was the first ever draft pick of the Jazz in 1974 and teamed up immediately with Maravich as an exciting wing duo. His long range shooting was deadly, and punctuated by announcer Hot Rod Hundley’s signature “A.J. from the parking lot!” exclamations. But all that excitement didn’t translate into consistent success in terms of wins, and the Jazz missed the postseason all five years they played in the Crescent City. ’77-’78 was the biggest disappointment, with New Orleans looking like a playoff team until late January, when Maravich suffered a season-ending knee injury and they tumbled in the standings. Disillusioned by the franchise’s move to Salt Lake City in 1979, James absconded overseas, finishing his playing career in Italy and the Philippines. He was retired by the time the Jazz made their first ever playoff appearance, in 1984.

22) Ledell Eackles (came closest: ’97-’98 with Wizards)

How does a guy last an entire decade in the modern NBA, average 20+ minutes per game, but never step foot on the court for a playoff game? Getting drafted by the Bullets did the trick for Eackles, who was a second round pick in 1988. As the Bullets were struggling under coach Wes Unseld, seemingly losing 50+ games every year, Eackles was racking up stats off the bench. He averaged 12.7 points per game in his first four seasons but also built a reputation as an unrepentant, out-of-shape gunner and spent the back half of his career bouncing between the NBA, CBA, and Israeli Super League. After the now Wizards broke an eight-year playoff drought in 1997, Eackles returned to the team in ’97-’98 but they just missed the postseason, finishing one game behind the Nets for the East’s #8 seed.

21) Geoff Huston (came closest: ’79-’80 with Knicks)

Drafted by the Knicks in the third round in 1979, Huston joined an up-and-coming roster built around Micheal Ray Richardson and Bill Cartwright. New York was in a playoff position late in the ’79-’80 season, but dropped five of their final six games to miss out on a spot in a tiebreaker. The Knicks won 50 games and reached the playoffs in ’80-’81 but without Huston, who was selected by the Mavericks that summer in their expansion draft and spent the rest of his career on horrible teams. Notable stops: 1) as the leading scorer, with 16.1 points per game, on the inaugural Mavericks that lost 67 games, 2) averaging 10.3 points per game for the ’81-’82 Cavaliers that also lost 67 games and cycled through four head coaches, and 3) ending his career on the ’86-’87 Clippers that finished 12-70. His 2,509 career assists are the most by any retired player without a playoff appearance and Huston also still holds the Cavs franchise record for assists in a game, with 27.

20) Don MacLean (came closest: ’97-’98 with Nets)

Notoriously hot-headed and injury prone, MacLean was traded eight times in his career and played in just 319 games over nine seasons (an average of 35 games per season), none of them in the playoffs. His peak came in ’93-’94, when he averaged career highs in scoring (18.2 points per game) and rebounding (6.2 per game) and won Most Improved Player for a Bullets team mired in its fifth consecutive 50-loss season. Knee tendinitis started to derail his career in ’94-’95 and he bounced around 10 different franchises in his final seven years. Three of those teams actually reached the playoffs but not with MacLean in tow. In ’97-’98, he made nine appearance with the Nets, including the regular season finale, but was left off the postseason roster in favor of Michael Cage. Similar scenarios then played out for MacLean with the Suns in ’99-’00 and the Heat in ’00-’01.

19) Popeye Jones (came closest: ’02-’03 with Mavericks)

A hard-nosed defensive and rebounding specialist, Jones would have been a perfect role player for the back-to-back champion Rockets in the mid ’90s. But in a cruel twist of fate, Houston traded their second round pick just a week later to the Mavericks, who were the worst team in the NBA at the time. Jones peaked statistically in his three seasons in Dallas, posting a double-double in two of them, as the team averaged 57 losses per year. He was soon after traded to the newly minted and struggling Raptors, where he slummed for two seasons, then spent time on mediocre Celtics, Nuggets, and Wizards rosters. Just as the Mavericks were re-emerging as title contenders thanks to Dirk Nowitzki, Jones signed with the team in ’02-’03 and played in 26 regular season games but was left off the postseason roster as they reached the Conference Finals. Meanwhile, his son, Seth, is a three-time NHL All-Star and a mainstay in the Stanley Cup playoffs, with four appearances and counting with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

18) Brandon Ingram (came closest: ’19-’20 with Pelicans)

For the first 65 years of Lakers franchise history, a three-year stint with the team guaranteed a playoff appearance. But things had changed by the time Ingram was drafted second overall by Los Angeles in 2016. They were mired in a playoff drought that would eventually reach six seasons before a turnaround keyed by Anthony Davis, for whom Ingram was traded in the summer of 2019. He settled in nicely in New Orleans, getting named an All-Star and Most Improved Player in ’19-’20 while upping his scoring average over 20+ per game. While the Pelicans are a talented group, they’ve struggled with injuries and inexperience over the last two seasons. They made the Disney World campus bubble in 2020 but lost of six of eight games to miss the postseason. They’re in the mix again in 2021 but will have to catch the Spurs for the #10 seed then qualify through the play-in tournament to break Ingram’s playoffs drought.

17) Ryan Gomes (came closest: ’11-’12 with Clippers)

The Celtics have been a consistent playoff contender this century, with 16 appearances in the last 19 years, but Gomes was somehow only there for two of the seasons they missed it. A second round pick in 2005, he was a long shot to even make the roster but wound up starting 33 games at power forward due to various other players suffering injuries and was named 2nd-Team All-Rookie. He played even better individually in ’06-’07 but the Celtics were purposefully tanking and shipped off Gomes that summer to Minnesota as part of the Kevin Garnett trade. His career peak was thus wasted on the dreadful Timberwolves, where he played respectfully but could hardly replace Garnett’s contributions. Gomes was traded to a solid Trail Blazers team in 2010 but waived before the season started and instead signed with the rebuilding Clippers. While Los Angeles made a huge turnaround in ’11-’12 behind Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, Gomes fell out of favor with coach Vinny Del Negro and was left off the postseason roster entirely.

16) Bryant Reeves (came closest: ’00-’01 with Grizzlies)

His name is synonymous with draft bust and the spectacular collective failure of the Vancouver Grizzlies but Reeves actually had a couple solid seasons individually. He was good enough to be named 2nd-Team All-Rookie in ’95-’96 after the Grizzlies drafted him sixth overall, then averaged 16.2 points and 8.0 rebounds over the two subsequent seasons. But the Grizzlies were historically bad in those years, losing 67, 68, and 63 games, respectively. When Bryant signed a $65 million contract in 1998 and then showed up for the lockout season overweight and struggling with back pain, Vancouver fans swiftly turned on him as the whipping boy for all the franchise’s problems until he retired in 2001, just as the team was relocating to Memphis. When his contract expired in 2003 and the Grizzlies no longer had to pay him in retirement, the rebuilt franchise finally made its first playoff appearance.

15) Darius Miles (came closest: ’03-’04 with Trail Blazers)

A spot on this list feels appropriate for Miles, who reportedly once remarked that the Trail Blazers could “lose every game for all I care” when coach Maurice Cheeks attempted to alter his role in the offense to improve the team. One has to wonder what Miles’ career may have looked like if he had accepted a bench role for the Cavaliers after they drafted his small forward replacement, LeBron James, in 2003. Still only 22 years old at the time, the prep-to-pro phenom was already a reliable scorer but was also struggling with the culture shock of his instant wealth and the pressures of NBA stardom. It didn’t help that he was traded to the “Jail Blazers” in Portland, who snapped a 21-year streak of playoff appearances by finishing in 10th in the West in ’03-’04. Miles was averaging a career high 14.0 points per game in ’05-’06 when he shredded his knee during a late season game, effectively ending his career. He signed with the defending champion Celtics in 2008 but was waived right before the season started.

14) Brandon Knight (came closest: ’14-’15 with Suns)

In a nine-year career and counting, Knight has already been traded five times, and two of those were mid-season transactions in which he was shipped from an impending playoff team to an also-ran. The first time happened during the ’14-’15 season, when he was the leading scorer for the Bucks until they traded him at the deadline to the Suns as a part of a three-team deal. Milwaukee reached the playoffs that year while the Suns finished in ninth place in the West. Playing for the lowly Suns for three-and-a-half seasons, Knight averaged a career high 19.6 points per game in ’15-’16 but suffered through near constant losing. He was traded to the Rockets in 2018 and poised to finally reach the playoffs as a backup point guard but had the rug ripped out from under him at the deadline again, this time getting dealt to the terrible Cavaliers. Though team success at the pro level has been elusive for Knight, the story was different in his amateur career. He led Pine Crest High School to back-to-back Florida state titles in 2008 and 2009, then reached the Final Four with Kentucky in 2011. He reportedly worked out for the title contender Bucks in March of this year but was not signed.

13) Nikola Pekovic (came closest: ’13-’14 with Timberwolves)

His NBA career was brief, lasting only 271 games over six seasons, but it’s still striking how Pekovic never came even reasonably close to reaching the postseason. You can largely blame the competitive Western Conference, where the Timberwolves could finish a respectable 40-42 in the ’13-’14 season behind the efforts of Pekovic and Kevin Love but still be nine games out of playoff position. After leading Panathinaikos to the Greek League and EuroLeague titles in 2009, Pekovic joined the Timberwolves team that drafted him late in the first round. He averaged as many as 17.5 points and 8.8 rebounds per game in his prime but struggled almost constantly with leg, foot, and ankle injuries. In Pekovic’s six seasons, the Timberwolves won just 33% of the games they played and twice suffered 65 or more losses.

12) Elfrid Payton (came closest: ’15-’16 with Magic)

Postseason play at the collegiate level was also elusive for Payton, who starred for Louisiana-Lafayette, a mid-major school in the Sun Belt Conference. He made just one NCAA Tournament appearance with the school, a first round loss in 2014, and was drafted by the 76ers that summer and immediately traded to the Magic. Joining an Orlando team that was mired in a slow post-Dwight Howard rebuild, Payton put up solid stats in his first three seasons (and was named 1st-Team All-Rookie) for teams that lost 57, 47, and 53 games, respectively. They came relatively closest to the playoffs in ’15-’16, with a 35-47 record placing them nine games out of the #8 seed. Ever since the Magic traded him to Phoenix in 2018, Payton’s been hampered by various injuries, most notably a fractured finger. Just as his former Orlando teammates made back-to-back playoff appearances in 2019 and 2020, Payton was toiling away for cellar dwellers in New Orleans and New York. He’s been a steady starting point guard for the Knicks in ’20-’21 and will be likely playing his way off this list in the next few weeks.

“Fundamentally sound and a scoring threat, [Nate] Williams could have been an impact player on a contender but instead had the misfortune of spending his entire prime with arguably the two most dysfunctional franchises of the ’70s, Kansas City and New Orleans.”

11) Eddy Curry (came closest: ’04-’05 with Bulls)

Probably the most tragic story on this list, Curry was drafted fourth overall by the Bulls in 2001 to turn the franchise around, and when the team had finally rebuilt and was heading to the postseason in ’04-’05, he was sidelined with an irregular heartbeat. Curry was the leading scorer, at 16.1 points per game, for that ’04-’05 Bulls that went on to lose a first round series to the Wizards without him. It seemed like a debutante season for Curry, who had suffered through serious growing pains after the Bulls snatched him straight out of high school, but it came to a crashing end in a late March game against the Grizzlies, when he complained to team trainers about chest pains. Concerned about his longterm health, the Bulls traded him that summer to the Knicks, a team in the midst of its own painful rebuild under president and coach Isiah Thomas. Despite leading the Knicks in scoring in ’06-’07 with a career high 19.5 points per game, Curry showed up to camp in 2008 so out-of-shape that new coach Mike D’Antoni basically benched him for the season. He was traded to the Timberwolves as part of the Carmelo Anthony deal, bought out, signed with the Heat and, newly in decent shape again, played some down the stretch of the ’11-’12 season but made no appearances in the playoffs (though he did receive a title ring for his efforts). Curry did eventually get to play in a basketball postseason, albeit in the Chinese Basketball Association, in 2013 with the Zhejiang Golden Bulls before retiring.

10) Zach LaVine (came closest: ’16-’17 with Timberwolves)
9) Julius Randle (came closest: ’17-’18 with Lakers)

Two rising stars with a lot in common: Both were lottery picks in 2014 out of blue blood schools (Kentucky for Randle and UCLA for LaVine), both just made their All-Star debut in their seventh season, and both have spent their entire career on also-ran teams. But while Randle will be breaking his drought by leading the Knicks to the playoffs this year, LaVine’s Bulls have fallen apart down the stretch and he’ll continue to climb up this list. As far off as he is, this is still the closest LaVine has ever come to the postseason. In his first three seasons with the Timberwolves, they finished 15th, 13th, and 13th in the West, while the Bulls finished 13th, 13th, and 11th in his first three years in Chicago. Things started similarly for Randle, finishing 14th, 13th, 14th, and 11th with the Lakers to start his career, then 13th in the West with the Pelicans and 12th in the East with the Knicks.

8) John Brisker (came closest: ’75-’76 with SuperSonics)

This is arguably the most improbable entry on this list, as Brisker not only missed the postseason in his three NBA seasons, but also in his three ABA seasons, where a postseason berth awaited eight out of a possible 11 teams. Unwanted by the NBA after he failed out of college at Toledo, Brisker signed with the Pittsburgh Pipers of the ABA and was already the team’s leading scorer as a rookie. In his second and third ABA seasons, Brisker averaged 29.2 points and 9.5 rebounds per game but Pittsburgh management was stingy and the team suffered in the standings as a result. With two ABA All-Star appearances under his belt, plus a 2nd-Team All-ABA designation in ’70-’71 when he nearly won the scoring title, Brisker parlayed his ABA success into a contract with the Sonics in 1972. Still a relatively new franchise at the time, Seattle was struggling to compete and it didn’t help when the freewheeling Brisker butted heads with the conservative coach Bill Russell. Though the Sonics finally made their playoff debut in ’75-’76, Russell left Brisker off the postseason roster and management, concerned with his status as an instigator, waived him that summer. Two years later, Brisker boarded a flight to Uganda and was never heard from again. It’s been long rumored that he took a position within the regime of oppressive dictator and noted basketball fan Idi Amin.

7) Bob Rule (’69-’70 with SuperSonics)

The original Sonics in ’67-’68 were hardly a group of world beaters, but they were certainly tough, likable and memorable. The centerpiece was Rule, an undersized center who just seemed to play big, setting the mold for guys like Dave Cowens and Ben Wallace. Rule was 1st-Team All-Rookie while averaging an impressive 18.1 points and 9.5 rebounds per game, and upped those numbers to 24.6 points and 10.3 rebounds per game by his third season, when he was named to his first All-Star Game. But Seattle struggled to add useful pieces around Rule and veteran point guard (and player-coach) Lenny Wilkens. They came close to the playoffs in ’69-’70, despite a losing record, and things looked promising early in ’70-’71 before Rule tore his Achilles’ tendon. It cost him the remainder of that season and really the rest of his career, as he never fully recovered and made only minimal contributions over his final four seasons on losing teams in Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. Rule retired in 1975 and one year later the Sonics finally made their first playoff appearance in franchise history.

6) Devin Booker (came closest: ’19-’20 with Suns)

Barring an injury (*knocks on wood*), Booker will become the latest young star to debut on this list and then immediately remove his name from it, joining recent luminaries like Nikola Jokic. Now in his sixth season with the Suns, Booker has developed into one of the league’s best guards and team management has made bold moves to surround him with talent, including a blockbuster trade for Chris Paul in 2020. The Suns finished dead last in the West in three of Booker’s first four seasons in the NBA, and 14th in the one other season, but he almost single handedly turned things around in ’19-’20. They just barely qualified for the bubble re-start but went on a Booker-led tear in Orlando, winning all eight games but still coming up just short of qualifying for the play-in series.

5) Clark Kellogg (came closest: ’85-’86 with Pacers)

In a story eerily similar to Bob Rule’s, Kellogg was a star in his first three seasons with the moribund Pacers, but suffered a debilitating injury just as the team’s fortunes were starting to change. Considered a potential franchise savior when Indiana drafted him in the first round in 1982, Kellogg was a basketball prodigy from Cleveland who rewrote the Ohio high school record books and was Big 10 Player of the Year while at Ohio State. He finished second in Rookie of the Year voting in ’82-’83 (behind Terry Cummings) and averaged 19.3 points and 9.7 rebounds per game over his first three seasons. But the franchise was an absolute mess, with an owner threatening to sell to California investors. That deal never came to fruition (he wound up selling instead to the Indiana-based businessman Herb Simon, who still owns the team to this day) but the product on the court didn’t improve, as the Pacers lost 62 games in ’82-’83, 56 in ’83-’84, and 60 in ’84-’85. There was reason for optimism in ’85-’86, as Kellogg, fresh off signing a huge endorsement deal with Converse, was the anchor of a solid, young base along with Vern Fleming, Herb Williams, and a rookie Wayman Tisdale. But Kellogg’s season lasted just 19 games as two major knee injuries kept him sidelined. He attempted to make a comeback in ’85-’86, but could only play in a handful of contests before being forced to retire, watching from the bench as the Pacers finally reached the playoffs in 1987, the first of 16 appearances in a 19-year stretch.

4) Otto Moore (came closest: ’70-’71 with Pistons)

As much as fans complain now that the NBA would be fairer if the top 16 teams made the playoffs regardless of conference, things were even worse in the early ’70s. In ’70-’71 the Pistons, led by Dave Bing and Bob Lanier and featuring Moore as a backup center, finished 45-37 but missed the postseason. That’s because back then only two teams from each division would reach the playoffs and Detroit had the misfortune of playing in the toughest division. Moore was traded that offseason to Phoenix only to have the exact same thing happen to him in ’71-’72, as the Suns won 49 games but fell well short of a playoff berth. Those would turn out to be the only two winning seasons of his nine-year career, as the rest of his time was spent with cellar dwellers in Detroit, Houston, Kansas City, and New Orleans. Though he played at a Division II school, Pan American College, Moore was such a revelation in his NCAA days that he was drafted sixth overall by the Pistons in 1968. But he spent most of his time in Detroit coming off the bench, first behind veteran Walt Bellamy and later behind rookie sensation Bob Lanier. He did manage to average some decent stats, including a double-double in the ’69-’70 and ’72-’73 seasons, and finished in the top 10 in the NBA in blocks in ’75-’76. Moore’s 5,575 career rebounds is the all-time record for players without a playoff appearance.

3) Nate Williams (came closest: ’77-’78 with Warriors)

Fundamentally sound and a scoring threat, Williams could have been an impact player on a contender but instead had the misfortune of spending his entire prime with arguably the two most dysfunctional franchises of the ’70s, Kansas City and New Orleans. He was the league’s first beneficiary of the “hardship rule” whereby college juniors could start joining the NBA in 1971, and was selected by Cincinnati in a supplemental draft. The Royals were a mess, on the cusp of moving to Kansas City, reeling from Oscar Robertson’s departure, coached by an indifferent Bob Cousy, and centered around a ball-hogging Tiny Archibald. Just the Kings were rounding into a playoff contender in ’74-’75, Williams was traded at the deadline to the Jazz, who were arguably the most mismanaged franchise of the ’70s. Thus, Williams averaged 12.0 points per game over eight NBA seasons, but never reached the playoffs. He did come close late in his career with the Warriors, who missed out on a playoff spot in ’77-’78 by virtue of a loss in their final regular season game.

2) Geoff Petrie (came closest: ’74-’75 with Trail Blazers)

Our third and final installment (forming a trilogy with Bob Rule and Clark Kellogg) of a youthful superstar toiling away for several seasons on a young, struggling franchise before having his career waylaid by a major injury. For Petrie, the team was Portland, who made him their inaugural first round pick in 1970, and the injury was a shredded knee that ended his career in 1976 at the age of 28. A combo guard who could handle the rock and fire away shots from anywhere on the court, Petrie averaged 18+ points and four-plus assists per game in each of his six NBA seasons. He was named to two All-Star teams, Rookie of the Year, and finished in the top 10 in scoring three times, peaking at 24.9 points per game in ’72-’73, good for seventh place. The Blazers were never a legitimate threat in Petrie’s six seasons there, though they did come within two games of a playoff spot in ’74-’75, with a record of 38-44. With Petrie becoming redundant on the roster thanks to the emergence of Lionel Hollins, they traded him in 1976 for a position of need in power forward Maurice Lucas. Petrie would never actually play for the Hawks team that traded for him, as his severe knee injury was suffered during training camp and ended his career right then and there. One could argue he contributed to the Blazers title in ’76-’77 as much as some of the guys on the actual roster, as his trade for Lucas was the final piece in their championship puzzle. Perhaps owing slightly to that, Petrie had his #45 retired by Portland in 1985.

1) Tom Van Arsdale (came closest: ’67-’68 with Royals)

Van Arsdale, who lasted 12 seasons in the NBA and was a three-time All-Star, holds the records for most games played without a playoff appearance (929) and most career points scored (14,232). He has also once again regained his crown as the greatest player without a postseason appearance, thanks to DeMarcus Cousins making his debut in 2019. Van Arsdale’s twin brother, Dick, got to play in the playoffs four times in his career, including the 1976 NBA Finals with Phoenix. Tom wasn’t so lucky, getting drafted in 1965 by the lowly Pistons, then bouncing around to similarly mediocre teams in Detroit, Cincinnati/Kansas City, Philadelphia, and Atlanta. It’s hard to say which of his seasons had the most painful outcome. Candidates include ’67-’68, when Van Arsdale was traded mid-season from the playoff-bound Pistons to a Royals team that missed out on the postseason by one game behind Detroit, ’72-’73 when he played on a 76ers team that set the NBA record for ineptitude with 73 losses, or ’76-’77 when he teamed up with his brother on a Suns team that was coming off a Finals appearance the year before but tumbled down the standings and missed the playoffs altogether with a 34-48 record.