Editor’s note: List does not include players like George Mikan, whose career came before the MVP award was first granted in 1956.

17) Clyde Drexler (came closest: ’91-’92)

It should come as no surprise that in Drexler’s greatest season, he was outshone and defeated in MVP voting by Michael Jordan. In ’91-’92, Drexler finished fourth in the NBA in scoring with 25.0 points per game, plus 6.7 assists and 6.6 rebounds, led the Trail Blazers to the top seed in the West and was named 1st-Team All-NBA for the first and only time in his career. He received 18 first place votes in MVP voting but finished far behind Jordan in second place (and to add insult to injury, his Blazers were defeated by Jordan’s Bulls in the ensuing NBA Finals). Drexler finished in the top five in MVP voting one other team, a fifth-place finish in ’87-’88, another season that Jordan was the honoree.

16) George Gervin (came closest: ’77-’78)

Though he won four scoring titles over a five-season span, and was 1st-Team All-NBA five times, Gervin was never named MVP. He finished second in voting twice, most notably in ’77-’78. “Iceman” arguably deserved to be honored that year, leading the league with 27.8 points per game (clinching the scoring title in dramatic fashion with 63 points in his final game to edge out David Thompson) and carrying the Spurs to a surprise 50-win season. Instead the award was given to Bill Walton, despite the star Blazers center missing 24 games due to injury, with 96 first place votes to Gervin’s 80. Gervin finished in second place again the next season, this time lagging far behind the winner, Moses Malone, then third in ’79-’80, behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Julius Erving. His four scoring titles without an MVP award is the all-time record. Gervin was named MVP of the All-Star Game in 1980 with a 34-point performance.

15) Isiah Thomas (came closest: ’83-’84)

Never one to eschew team success for personal accolades, Thomas compiled a legendary career surprisingly bereft of awards and honors. He was 1st-Team All-NBA just three times and never came particularly close to earning league MVP. His best statistical seasons came early in his career, long before the “Bad Boys” Pistons were perennial title contenders, and coincided with his adjacency to MVP votes. Thomas finished fifth in voting in ’83-’84, with just one first place vote, when he averaged a career high 21.0 points per game, ninth in ’84-’85, when he led the NBA in assists, ninth in ’85-’86, and eighth in ’86-’87. He registered just one vote share in ’88-’89 and ’89-’90 as the Pistons won back-to-back titles, with Thomas earning Finals MVP in the latter.

14) Elvin Hayes (came closest: ’74-’75)

In the same season his future Bullets teammate Wes Unseld was earning MVP and Rookie of the Year honors, Hayes led the NBA in scoring at 28.4 points per game as a rookie but didn’t receive a single MVP vote. It was likely due to his playing for a subpar San Diego Rockets team, and Hayes did receive more MVP recognition in his prime on the Bullets, with whom he reached the NBA Finals in 1975, 1978, and 1979. In that ’74-’75 season, Hayes finished third in MVP voting behind Bob McAdoo and Dave Cowens, with 37 first place votes (compared to 81 for McAdoo). He was third again in voting in ’78-’79, this time more distantly behind Moses Malone and George Gervin. In fact, Hayes never won any individual NBA accolade, beat out by Unseld for Rookie of the Year in ’68-’69 and Finals MVP in 1978, and never earning All-Star MVP in 12 appearances. Out of all the players who never earned league MVP, Hayes has the most career points and most career rebounds.

13) Gary Payton (came closest: ’97-’98)

Though he’s generally considered one of the greatest point guards of all time, and one of the ultimate perimeter defenders, Payton was never a true MVP threat. He finished in the top 10 in voting for seven straight seasons in his prime, but in the top five just once, in ’97-’98, when he was a distant third, with three first place votes, behind Michael Jordan and Karl Malone. First place votes were granted to Payton just one other time in his career and it came in ’01-’02, when he averaged a career high 9.0 assists per game at age 33. Payton did earn Defensive Player of the Year in ’95-’96, and finished in the top five in voting in that category on five other occasions.

12) Dwight Howard (came closest: ’10-’11)

Though Howard technically came closest to MVP in ’10-’11, when he finished second in voting, he was more deserving in the two seasons prior. In both ’08-’09 and ’09-’10, the superstar center led the NBA in both rebounding and blocks, won Defensive Player of the Year, and carried the Magic to title contention. But LeBron James ran away with the MVP award in both those seasons, and Howard finished fourth each time. James was left vulnerable in ’10-’11, with voters souring on his team up with Dwyane Wade in Miami, but Howard was lapped in voting by young point guard sensation Derrick Rose. Still only 25 years old at the time, that would shockingly turn out to be the beginning of the end of Howard’s tenure as an elite player. He finished seventh in the MVP race in ’11-’12 but has not received a single vote since then.

11) Jason Kidd (came closest: ’01-’02)

You wouldn’t necessarily know it from looking at his statistics, but Kidd was consistently one of the five best players in the NBA for a solid stretch, starting in ’98-’99 and ending around ’03-’04. The peak was ’01-’02, when he joined the Nets via trade and immediately turned the moribund franchise around. Though he wasn’t the assists leader that season, as he had been the prior three years, Kidd dominated on both ends of the floor and the Nets improved from 26 wins in ’00-’01 to an NBA Finals appearance in ’01-’02. Unfortunately for Kidd, this was also the absolute prime of Tim Duncan’s career. The Spurs star won his first of two consecutive MVP awards by just eking out Kidd, with 954 points to 897 (Shaquille O’Neal was also a close third with 696). Though Duncan had the better stats on paper, Kidd was arguably the more “valuable” player that season, and the voting may have been influenced by his domestic violence charges that were settled in the summer of 2001. He finished in the top five in voting just one other time, the lockout-shortened ’98-’99 season.

10) Rick Barry (came closest: ’74-’75)

Second in the NBA in scoring with 30.6 points per game, while leading the league in steals and free throw percentage, and earning Finals MVP for carrying the Warriors to a surprise title, Barry was the unquestionable star of the ’74-’75 season. But he finished only fourth in MVP voting, behind not only the winner, Bob McAdoo, but also Elvin Hayes and, most insultingly, Dave Cowens, who missed 17 games with a broken foot. Though his stats dropped off some in ’75-’76, Barry increased his first place vote shares from 16 to 20 but finished a distant fourth overall again, far behind the winner, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Voters were likely dispirited by Barry’s perception as a difficult teammate and malcontent, and his fractious spurning of the NBA for the ABA in 1967. Though he was consistently one of the ABA’s biggest stars in his four years in the league, Barry never earned MVP there either, finishing second in voting in ’69-’70.

9) John Stockton (came closest: ’88-’89)

He’s the all-time NBA leader in assists and steals and undeniably an all-time legend, but Stockton was 1st-Team All-NBA just twice in his career, and never finished higher than seventh in MVP voting. That voting peak came relatively early in his career, in ’88-’89, when he led the league in assists and steals, and was named to his first All-Star team. He didn’t receive any first place votes but did get enough to finish seventh overall, far behind the winner, Magic Johnson, and his own teammate, Karl Malone, who came in third (and eventually won the award twice). Stockton received some share of the MVP vote 11 other times in his career, but garnered a first place vote just once, in ’94-’95.

“It’s telling that the “closest” [John] Havlicek came to earning MVP was a season in which he finished a distant fifth, and his own Celtics teammate, Dave Cowens, was the winner.”

8) Dolph Schayes (came closest: ’57-’58)

He finished in the top 10 in voting in the first six seasons that league MVP was awarded, but Schayes never came away with the trophy. He arguably might have won it if it existed in ’54-’55, as he led the Nationals to the NBA title and was named 1st-Team All-NBA, but even then he may have been beat out by rookie sensation Bob Pettit. It’s a capsule story of Schayes’ time in the NBA, as the power forward was overshadowed in the first half of his career by George Mikan, then in the second half by Pettit and Bill Russell. Schayes was a distant fifth in voting in ’55-’56 (Pettit won), a respectable fourth in ’56-’57 (Bob Cousy was honored), then came pretty close to winning in ’57-’58. Russell just beat him out in voting, with 228 points to 198, but, to be fair, racism must have played some part in it being that close, as the NBA media was still reluctant to name a black player as MVP. Schayes got enough votes to finish in the top 10 again in the next three seasons, but wasn’t a serious contender for the award anymore.

7) Dwyane Wade (came closest: ’08-’09)

One of five players on this list who won Finals MVP but never league MVP, Wade earned that award at age 24. He finished sixth in MVP voting in that ’05-’06 season but struggled over the next couple years with injuries. His peak as a viable MVP candidate was ’08-’09 and ’09-’10, when he was single-handedly carrying the Heat and keeping them relevant. Wade garnered a few first place votes in ’08-’09, but finished a distant third overall in voting behind LeBron James and Kobe Bryant, then in fifth place in ’09-’10. Once James joined him on the Heat, Wade’s days as an MVP contender were finished, though he did finish in the top 10 in voting three more times.

6) Scottie Pippen (came closest: ’93-’94)

The ’93-’94 season was a rare opportunity for Pippen in the wake of Michael Jordan’s first retirement. You don’t typically get to see a player typecast as a second banana get a chance, in his prime, to prove his worth as an individual superstar without changing teams. After missing some time early in the season with an ankle injury, he set the stage with a 30 point, 11 rebound performance in a huge late November win over Phoenix and continued to dominate from there. Pippen was eventually named MVP of the 1994 All-Star Game and averaged career highs in points, rebounds, and steals, while leading the Bulls to 55 wins. But the season ultimately belonged to Hakeem Olajuwon, who dominated the MVP voting, with Pippen coming in third, also behind David Robinson. His next highest voting finish was in the legendary ’95-’96 season, when he came in fifth while his un-retired teammate Jordan won the award.

5) Patrick Ewing (came closest: ’88-’89)

Though he finished in the top five in voting six times, a feat to which only 23 other NBA players can lay claim, Ewing was never a true MVP contender. In fact, it’s debatable between him and John Havlicek as to who was the greatest player of all time to never have a realistic chance at winning MVP. His first top five finish, in ’88-’89, was probably the closest he came to winning it, gaining eight first place votes but finishing fourth overall, far behind the winner, Magic Johnson. From there, Ewing was fifth in voting in ’89-’90 (the only season he was named 1st-Team All-NBA), fifth in ’91-’92, fourth in ’92-’93, fifth in ’93-’94, and fourth in ’94-’95. It was just unfortunate timing for a player who will remain one of the 50 greatest of all time for the foreseeable future, but was arguably never the best center in any season he played, let alone the best player.

4) Chris Paul (came closest: ’07-’08)

Only three players in NBA post-merger history have led the league in both assists and steals in the same season and amazingly two of them, Paul and John Stockton, never earned an MVP trophy to go along with it. Unlike both Stockton and his stylistic predecessor, Isiah Thomas, Paul actually came extremely close to hoisting the MVP trophy, finishing in second place in ’07-’08 behind Kobe Bryant. He was just 22 years old at the time and still improving but also struggled with injuries throughout his prime and was toiling for otherwise blah Hornets teams. After a trade to the Clippers in 2011, Paul finished third in voting in ’11-’12 and fourth in ’12-’13, but with a relatively low share of the voting score. His seven appearances on the 1st-Team or 2nd-Team All-NBA lists trails only Elgin Baylor and Jerry West as the most for a player without a corresponding MVP trophy.

3) John Havlicek (came closest: ’72-’73)

It’s telling that the “closest” Havlicek came to earning MVP was a season in which he finished a distant fifth, and his own Celtics teammate, Dave Cowens, was the winner. After spending his first seven seasons playing with Bill Russell, winning six championships, Havlicek had a stretch of one season, maybe two, where he was even the best player on his own team. That quickly changed as Cowens blossomed into a superstar, leaving Havlicek again playing second fiddle. Not that he never earned any individual accolades. Havlicek was Finals MVP in 1974 and 1st-Team or 2nd-Team All-NBA 11 times, which trails only Jerry West as the most for a player who didn’t win league MVP.

2) Elgin Baylor (came closest: ’62-’63)

A doubly tragic figure, and in multiple ways. Baylor was a victim of circumstance, spending his entire prime bumping up against Bill Russell in the playoffs and in the MVP ballot box, and suffered a major knee injury in 1964 that severely limited the last half of his career. He infamously reached the NBA Finals eight times without a title, an all-time record, and similarly finished in the top five in MVP voting seven times without winning, a mark bested only by his longtime Lakers teammate and #1 player on our list, Jerry West. Baylor finished a respectable but distant third in his rookie season, ’58-’59, and in ’60-’61, in a wide-open race won by Russell. He came as close as second in ’62-’63, with 19 first place votes to Russell’s 56. Despite the major injury, Baylor returned to MVP form late in the decade, finishing third again in ’67-’68 at age 33.

1) Jerry West (came closest: ’69-’70)

Along with Elgin Baylor and John Havlicek, West’s MVP chances were denied by the stranglehold on the award by Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain in the ’60s. The rival star centers captured the MVP in eight out of 10 years in the decade, broken only by Oscar Robertson averaging a triple-double for the season in ’63-’64, and then a surprise win for a rookie Wes Unseld in ’68-’69. West set several MVP-related records along the way. His nine top 10 voting finishes without winning is the all-time record, as are his eight top five finishes, and his three times coming in second. He also holds the record for most All-Star appearances without a league MVP (14) and most 1st-Team All-NBA designations (10). West first finished in second place in ’65-’66, when he averaged a career high 31.3 points per game, but fell well behind Chamberlain in votes. ’68-’69 may have been his best chance on paper with Unseld a shocking winner, but though West was in his pure prime at that point, he struggled with injuries and his stats took a dip with Chamberlain joining him in Los Angeles. In ’69-’70, West rejuvenated his career and lost out on MVP to Willis Reed in one of the closest votes in league history. Though he was never league MVP, West did capture the first Finals MVP award, in 1969, and the All-Star MVP honors in 1972.