Editor’s note: This is an update to a list originally published in September 2020

26) Dan Issel (came closest: 1978)

At least he won an ABA title. That championship came in 1975 with the Kentucky Colonels but Issel was traded that same summer to the Nuggets and spent the rest of his career in Denver. After the 1976 merger, the Nuggets reached the playoffs seven times in Issel’s nine NBA seasons. Initially, Issel teamed with David Thompson to guide Denver to the 1978 Conference Finals but struggled at times in the series as they fell in six games to the Sonics. Seven years later he was the sixth man on the ’84-’85 Nuggets that bludgeoned opponents in coach Doug Moe’s hurry-up offense. They reached the Conference Finals again, but this time were no match for the Showtime Lakers, losing in five games. Issel never found much success in his six seasons coaching the Nuggets either, winning just one playoff series during that span.

25) Vince Carter (came closest: 2010)

Unfairly or not, Carter’s career will always be linked with playoff failure. The most notable occurrence was in 2001 as a member of the Raptors, when he opted to attend his graduation ceremony at UNC on the morning of a second round game seven battle against the 76ers. Critics and fans would pan the decision in retrospect, after Carter missed the game-winning shot that night and Philadelphia moved on to the Conference Finals. But it’s unfair to Carter, who was terrific in that series, dueling Allen Iverson the entire time and throwing down 50 points in a game three Toronto win. He later joined three teams that were just coming off an NBA Finals appearance: the Nets in 2004, the Magic in 2010, and the Mavericks in 2011. But in all three cases, the team degraded with Carter on the roster. His only Conference Finals appearance came in 2010 with Orlando, when they lost to the Celtics.

24) Marques Johnson (came closest: 1978)

As a star player at UCLA, Johnson led the Bruins to the 10th and final title of coach John Wooden’s career in 1975. He found postseason success much harder to come by at the next level. But blame can hardly be placed at the feet of Johnson himself, who regularly averaged better stats in the playoffs than he did in the regular season. His Bucks teams reached the Conference Finals in back-to-back years in 1983 and 1984, but ran into all-time great teams in the 76ers and Celtics, respectively. Their best chance probably came in his rookie year, ’77-’78, when Milwaukee still played in the West and probably could have defeated Seattle in that year’s Conference Finals. But the Bucks dropped a tough second round series to Denver in seven games, despite Johnson averaging 22.7 points and 12.0 rebounds per game in a masterful performance.

23) Derrick Rose (came closest: 2011)
22) Paul George (came closest: 2013)

Two potential all-time greats with similar career trajectories: fast start, puts a scare into the “Big Three” Heat, then suffers a major injury and is never the same. Rose was NBA MVP at age 22 and played spectacularly in the 2011 Conference Finals against the Heat, despite his Bulls otherwise getting overwhelmed in five games. The 2012 postseason seemed like a fresh opportunity to advance to the next level up until Rose suffered a devastating ACL tear during a first round series against the 76ers and his career was never the same. George was just 23 years old when he led the Pacers to a second consecutive Conference Finals in 2014. They gave Miami a massive fight in both of those series but fell just short each time. George then broke his leg in the summer of 2014 and never fully recovered. He did get one more shot at a Conference Finals in 2021 with the Clippers, losing to the Suns.

21) David Thompson (came closest: 1978)

Thompson’s career is indelibly linked with his longtime Nuggets teammate Dan Issel, including their respective placements on this list. Both stars struggled some in the 1978 Western Conference Finals, where Denver fell just short against the SuperSonics. Thompson was then unstoppable in a 1979 first round series against the Lakers but Denver lost in three games. His career started to slip from there, the result of substance abuse and several knee injuries. Thompson did manage to make four NBA All-Star appearances, was 1st-Team All-NBA twice, and finished as high as third in MVP voting. In his one and only ABA season, Thompson helped the Nuggets reach the 1976 ABA Finals, where they lost to the New York Nets. It took the franchise nearly 50 years to return to that level again, finally breaking through and winning the NBA title in 2023.

20) Connie Hawkins (came closest: 1974)

There were only so many chances for Hawkins to reach the NBA Finals after he was blacklisted by the league for years due to a college point shaving scandal (in which he didn’t actively participate). Hawkins’ pro career started promisingly, earning ABA Rookie of the Year, league MVP, and Playoffs MVP after leading the Pittsburgh Pipers to the 1968 title. When his suspension was lifted, Hawkins joined the snake-bit Suns in 1969 at age 27 and found collective success much more fleeting at the NBA level. Hawkins was an All-Star in his first four seasons but the Suns made just one playoff appearance during that span, a first round loss. He made the postseason one more time with the Lakers in 1974, another first round exit.

19) Donovan Mitchell (came closest: 2026)

Only seven players have scored 50+ points in a playoff game multiple times. Mitchell is one of just two, along with Damian Lillard, who hasn’t paired it with an NBA Finals appearance. 2026 with the Cavaliers was actually the first Conference Finals in the career of Mitchell’s, whose Jazz and Cavs teams were previously 0-4 in Conference Semifinals series. Between that 2026 series ending in a sweep loss to the Knicks, Cleveland’s East rivals all loading up over the ensuing offseason, and Mitchell signing a massive contract extension, his chances of reaching the NBA Finals now feel as distant as ever. Another stat that perhaps helps explain this (though you could quibble about the causality): Of the 71 players with 2,000+ career playoff points, Mitchell has the fewest win shares, with only 6.8 total.

18) Dave Bing (came closest: 1977)

Few players in NBA history were as talented as Bing and labored for as long for such bad teams. In his nine seasons with Detroit, the team finished above .500 just twice, and reached the playoffs three times, each ending in a first round loss. The most notable postseason appearance was a demoralizing seven-game loss to the Bulls in 1974, which ended with a Chet Walker series-clinching jumper followed by a Bing inbounds pass being stolen. After a trade to the Bullets in 1975, he finally experienced the second round of the playoffs albeit as a lightly used backup point guard in 1977. Washington lost in the second round that season, and when they won the title in 1978 it was without Bing, who had signed with the Celtics and was finishing his career in a familiar position: Watching the playoffs on TV after his team was eliminated.

17) Sidney Moncrief (came closest: 1984)

Setting aside a forgettable comeback with the Hawks in ’90-’91, Moncrief spent his entire 10-year career with the Bucks. They reached the postseason in every season he was there, and as far as the Conference Finals three times. Unfortunately for Moncrief and Milwaukee, that period coincided with the prime of two powerhouse Eastern Conference opponents in the Celtics and 76ers. The Bucks lost to Julius Erving and the Sixers in the Conference Semifinals in 1981 and 1982, then the Conference Finals in 1983, and in the Conference Semifinals again in 1985. They lost to Larry Bird and the Celtics in the 1984 and 1986 Conference Finals, and the 1987 Conference Semifinals. By the time those two dynasties had winded down, the Bucks’ window was shut as well, and they were dispatched in meek fashion by the Hawks in 1988 and the Pistons in 1989.

16) Bob Lanier (came closest: 1984)

One of the premiere big men of the 1970s, Lanier was trapped (alongside Dave Bing for a while) on some terrible, and terribly unlucky, Pistons teams. He averaged 26.3 points and 15.3 rebounds per game in a first round series loss to the Bulls in 1974, then 20.3 points, 10.7 rebounds, 6.3 assists, and 4.0 blocks per game in a first round series loss to the SuperSonics in 1975. The Pistons finally won a series in 1976 only to fall just short of a Conference Semifinals upset against the Warriors, who also eliminated Detroit in a tight first round series in 1977. That was about it for Lanier in Detroit, who traded him to the Bucks in 1980 after nine seasons, seven All-Star appearances, and only one playoff series win. Lanier finally got to play in a Conference Finals with Milwaukee in 1984 with a familiar ending, losing to the Celtics.

15) Bernard King (came closest: 1984)

Through 14 brilliant but injury-riddled seasons in the NBA, King never even got to participate in a Conference Finals. He seemed endlessly stuck on teams that were unable to build around his prodigious scoring talent, whether it was in New Jersey, Utah, Golden State, New York, or Washington. The closest call was in 1984, when King averaged 42.6 points per game to out-duel Isiah Thomas and carry a sallow Knicks roster to a first round upset over Detroit. He then arguably outplayed Larry Bird in a second round series against the Celtics, pushing the eventual champions to seven games before bowing out. Other than that inspiring run and a second round appearance with New York in 1983, King also bookended his career with meek first round exits with the Nets in 1979 and 1993.

By the numbers: All-time postseason statistical leaders amongst players without an NBA Finals appearance, as of 2026 (active players in bold)

	Points	Rebounds	Assists
1	Paul George (2,596)	Carlos Boozer (920)	Steve Nash (1,061)
2	Donovan Mitchell (2,251)	Paul George (897)	Mike Conley (678)
3	Steve Nash (2,072)	Paul Millsap (878)	Paul George (506)
4	Carmelo Anthony (1,914)	Terry Cummings (742)	Paul Pressey (420)
5	Joe Johnson (1,828)	Clint Capela (741)	Damian Lillard (414)
6	Damian Lillard (1,715)	Zelmo Beaty (696)	Rod Strickland (390)
7	Terry Cummings (1,664)	Joel Embiid (692)	Tim Hardaway (382)
8	Alex English (1,661)	Antonio Davis (686)	Joe Johnson (369)
9	Joel Embiid (1,637)	Joakim Noah (659)	John Wall (364)
10	Vince Carter (1,593)	Bob Lanier (645)	Donovan Mitchell (358)

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14) Tim Hardaway (came closest: 1997)

The Run-T.M.C. Warriors of the early ’90s that featured Hardaway, Chris Mullin and Mitch Richmond are a hallowed institution of NBA history, but the team made just one playoff appearance past the first round, in 1991. Hardaway found better and more consistent playoff success after being traded to Pat Riley’s Heat, and he led the team in scoring in the 1997 playoffs as they reached the Conference Finals but lost to the Bulls. Miami was then upset by the Knicks in the next three postseasons, and just like that Hardaway’s window was slammed shut. Meanwhile, Mullin got to play in the 2000 NBA Finals with the Pacers while Richmond earned a ring riding the pine for the Lakers in 2002. But Hardaway’s son, Tim, Jr., is keeping the family tradition alive with no NBA Finals appearances in 12 seasons and counting.

13) Amar’e Stoudemire (came closest: 2007)

It’s hard to overstate what a revelation Stoudemire was in the 2005 playoffs. Just 22 years old, the dynamic center led the Suns with 29.9 points and 10.3 rebounds per game during the postseason as they reached the Conference Finals. Though they lost that series to the Spurs, it was no fault of Stoudemire, who held his own against Tim Duncan and seemed primed to take over the league for the next few seasons. But he tore his knee that summer and was never the same player after. Stoudemire missed the entire 2006 playoffs as the Suns returned to the Conference Finals but lost again. With Stoudemire back in 2007, the Suns were the West’s #2 seed and looking unstoppable, but dropped a controversial second round series against San Antonio. They reached the Conference Finals one last time with Stoudemire in 2010, this time losing to the Lakers.

12) Pete Maravich (came closest: 1980)

Things probably seemed promising at first for Maravich, who reached the playoffs with the Hawks in each of his first three seasons. Granted, they lost in the first round every time, and Maravich’s teams would fail to reach the playoffs for the next seven years, as he toiled away for a Jazz team that seemed to be perpetually rebuilding. This was basically a continuation of Maravich’s college career, where he led the nation in scoring for three straight years while his LSU team compiled a record of 49-35 and didn’t reach the NCAA Tournament. When the Jazz waived him during the ’79-’80 season, Maravich finally got to play with a contender in the burgeoning Celtics dynasty. They lost in the 1980 Conference Finals and Maravich subsequently retired due to his suffering knees, missing out on Boston’s ’80-’81 championship season.

11) Blake Griffin (came closest: 2015)

When he fully recovered from a major knee injury to earn Rookie of the Year honors in ’10-’11, Griffin seemed to herald the long-awaited end of the Clippers Curse. Instead, he was ultimately a harbinger of false hope, a dunking Trojan Horse. Teaming up with another tragic figure in Chris Paul, Griffin led the Clippers to six consecutive playoff appearances starting in 2012 but each ended in uniquely heartbreaking ways. The most agonizing was in 2015, when Los Angeles blew a 3-1 series lead to the Rockets in the Conference Semifinals. You can hardly blame Griffin for that one, as he averaged 28.3 points and 11.7 rebounds per game in those three losses. At the end of his career, Griffin signed with a contending Celtics team, only to watch from the sidelines as they were upset by the Heat in the 2023 Conference Finals.

10) Joel Embiid (came closest: 2023)

As we’ve detailed in the past, earning league MVP is hardly a guarantor of subsequent postseason success. But of the 37 players who’ve been named MVP, 35 of them have also played in the NBA Finals at some point in their career. The only two exceptions are Derrick Rose and Embiid, who has never even reached the Conference Finals. There’s been some real heartbreakers over the years in the Conference Semifinals. There was 2019, when Kawhi Leonard hit a buzzer beater for the Raptors in game seven. Then 2021, when the Sixers were upset as the top seed by the Hawks, and 2023 when Philly took a 3-2 series lead over the Celtics only to blow game six at home. Embiid’s health always has been and always will be a concern, but ’26-’27 seems like his best chance yet to finally break through, with LeBron James and Jaylen Brown now in tow.

9) Grant Hill (came closest: 2010)

Similar to Marques Johnson, Hill entered the NBA accustomed to postseason success, having played in three NCAA Tournament finals and winning two of them while at Duke. But the Pistons team that drafted him was still reeling from the end of the Bad Boys era, and was far from ready to contend. They managed to reach the playoffs four times with Hill as the best player, but lost in the first round each team. He was traded to the Magic in 2000 but injuries started to define his career at that point, and he played in just one playoff series in his six seasons with Orlando, another first round defeat. Remaking himself late in his career as a defensive specialist, Hill finally played past the first round in 2010, starting at small forward for the Suns team that reached the Conference Finals and included two other players on this list, Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire.

8) Alex English (came closest: 1985)

The high scoring English led the Nuggets to nine consecutive playoff appearances, five of which ended in the first round and three in the second round. The lone Conference Finals opportunity came in 1985, when English averaged 30.2 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 4.6 assists per game in series wins over the Spurs and Jazz. Denver faced long odds in the Conference Finals against the eventual champion Lakers but were on the brink of tying the series 2-2 when English broke his finger late in game four. Los Angeles came back to win the game with English sidelined, then put the series away in game five. Though he’s mostly remembered for his time with Denver, English’s first playoff heartbreak actually came against the Nuggets, with the Bucks in a 1978 Conference Semifinals that went the full seven games.

7) Chris Webber (came closest: 2002)

The ’01-’02 Kings came about as close as any team has come to reaching the NBA Finals without actually following through. Blame the refs all you want but Webber was one of several Sacramento stars that vanished down the stretch of losses in games six and seven. While Peja Stojakovic, Hedo Turkoglu, Mike Bibby, Doug Christie, and Scot Pollard would all bounce back to make NBA Finals appearances later in their careers (and Vlade Divac had been previously with the Lakers), this would prove to be the postseason peak for Webber. Disappointment at the highest level was nothing new for Webber, who famously cost Michigan the 1993 NCAA championship by calling a phantom timeout. He got one more decent chance at the NBA level in 2007, but his Pistons were upset in the Conference Finals that year by LeBron James and the Cavs.

6) Artis Gilmore (came closest: 1983)

Before coming to the NBA as part of the merger, Gilmore played in two ABA Finals with the Kentucky Colonels, winning a championship in 1975. He was selected in the 1976 dispersal draft by a rebuilding Bulls team and didn’t get a deep NBA playoff run until joining the Spurs in 1982. Facing off in the 1983 Conference Finals against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Gilmore held his own, averaging 19.8 points and 13.5 rebounds per game. But the Spurs couldn’t match the “Showtime” Lakers at their peak and lost in six games. As the Spurs then drifted into mediocrity in the mid ’80s, Gilmore eventually signed as a free agent with the Celtics in 1987 at age 38. In the final season of his career, he was a third string center as Boston lost to the Pistons in the 1988 Conference Finals, effectively ending the Larry Bird dynasty era.

5) Carmelo Anthony (came closest: 2009)

Long considered a playoff choker during his star years with the Nuggets and Knicks, Anthony actually had better stats in the postseason. In seven consecutive playoff appearances starting in 2007, Anthony averaged 27.5 points and 7.4 rebounds per game in losing efforts. The best run came in 2009, when the Nuggets pushed the heavily favored Lakers to six games in the Conference Finals. By the age of 28, Anthony already had 10 playoff appearances under his belt, but eight of them were first round exits. That would seem like salad days in the back half of his career, when Anthony made just three playoffs over his final eight seasons, all first round defeats. Along the way, Anthony teamed up with six other Hall of Fame players notable for their lack of championships: Allen Iverson, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Amar’e Stoudemire, and Damian Lillard.

4) Damian Lillard (came closest: 2019)

His postseason heroics are so renowned that they’ve taken a life of their own as “Dame Time.” But all that bluster has carried Lillard as far as the Conference Finals only once, in 2019. There’s plenty of blame to go around beyond Lillard, who toiled away for years on otherwise subpar Trail Blazers rosters. Lillard led Portland to the playoffs for eight straight seasons starting in 2014, with five first round losses and two second round defeats. In that 2019 exception, Lillard had a memorable buzzer beater to eliminate the Thunder and then led the Trail Blazers over the Nuggets in round two. An opportunity to upset the defending champion Warriors seemed possible in the Conference Finals with Kevin Durant sidelined, but Lillard suffered a separated rib himself early in the series and couldn’t play well enough through the pain to pull it off.

3) Dominique Wilkins (came closest: 1988)

Upon moving from St. Louis to Atlanta in 1968, the Hawks reached the Conference Finals immediately in back-to-back seasons. It took them over 40 years to return, with a team that arguably paled in comparison to the rosters in Wilkins’ era. But Wilkins and Atlanta had the misfortune of playing during arguably the most competitive epoch of Eastern Conference history. Of the eight Hawks teams featuring Wilkins that reached the playoffs, three were eliminated by Larry Bird’s Celtics, two by the Bad Boy Pistons, and one by Michael Jordan’s Bulls. The most memorable of those appearances came in 1988, when Wilkins battled Bird in an epic seven game second round series. For the time being, he remains ahead of Joel Embiid as the greatest player in NBA history without a Conference Finals appearance.

2) George Gervin (came closest: 1979)

Gervin holds plenty of distinctions amongst players without an NBA Finals appearance: The most playoff appearances (13), the most All-Star appearances (nine, tied with Dominique Wilkins and Damian Lillard), the most scoring titles (four) and the most 1st-Team All-NBAs (five). Unlike some of his peers on this list, Gervin didn’t even reach an ABA Finals in his four seasons in the league. His Spurs were still undeniably the best team to reach the NBA in the 1976 merger and Gervin led them to the Conference Finals in 1979, 1982, and 1983. The first instance was the most heartbreaking, with Gervin averaging 31.0 points per game but San Antonio blowing a 3-1 series lead against the Bullets. Game seven of that series was a breathtaking shootout between Gervin, who scored 42, and Washington’s Bob Dandridge, who dropped 37 and hit the game winning buzzer beater.

1) Steve Nash (came closest: 2006)

He is the only player never to reach the NBA Finals despite a) multiple NBA MVP awards, b) 9,000+ career assists, c) 1,000+ career playoff assists, or d) 100+ career NBA playoff game starts. Congratulations? The Spurs proved to be Nash’s Sisyphean obstacle, as his teams were 0-7 in playoff series against San Antonio. That included three first round losses (1998, 2008, and 2013), two second round losses (2001 and 2007) and two devastating Conference Finals losses (2003 with Dallas and 2005 with Phoenix). Nash suffered two more Conference Finals losses in his Suns career for good measure, in 2006 against his former Dallas team and in 2010 against the Lakers. He made one last go of it in ’12-’13 by signing as a free agent with the Lakers, but that star-studded team turned out to be a complete disaster, and was eliminated in a first round sweep by Nash’s old nemesis, the Spurs.