List of NBA franchise post-season droughts

This is a list of National Basketball Association (NBA) franchise post-season appearance droughts. This list includes the all-time and the active consecutive non-playoffs. Aside from the NBA playoff appearance droughts, this list also includes droughts of series wins, appearances in the NBA Finals and NBA championship wins. The teams which have never made an NBA Playoffs appearance, an NBA Finals appearance and have never won an NBA championship are listed from the year they entered the league.

Of the 30 current NBA franchises, 12 have never won the NBA championship. The oldest such franchise is the Suns (48 seasons), while the Royals/Kings and the Hawks have even longer championship droughts (65 and 58 seasons, respectively). Seven (7) franchises have never been to the NBA Finals, the highest number among the major North American sports. The oldest such team is the Braves/Clippers franchise (45 seasons); the Kings and the Hawks have appearance droughts that are even longer (65 and 58 seasons, respectively). The longest a franchise has gone without appearing in the playoffs at all is 15 seasons: the Braves/Clippers franchise from 1977 to 1991.

Of the 18 franchises that have won an NBA championship, 8 have droughts of 33 seasons or more, which is to say that the past 33 championships have been shared among only 10 franchises: the Lakers (8), the Bulls (6), the Spurs (5), the Celtics (3), the Pistons (3), the Heat (3), the Rockets (2), the Mavericks (1), the Warriors (1), and the Cavaliers (1). By contrast, the other three major North American sports have each had at least 15 franchises become champions over the same period of time.

...
Wikipedia