Ever since the NBA began in 1946, prolific dynasties and superstar athletes have donned its jerseys and spoiled fans with seemingly unending entertainment and fun during their careers. The most successful of these NBA teams are the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers, who have won 35 championships combined.
Such dominance hasn’t left too many trophies for the rest of the professional league. As the 2024/25 NBA season gets underway, 10 franchises are still yet to win their first NBA championship.
5 NBA Teams Without a Championship
“Failure does not come from losing, but from not trying.” – Larry Brown
Here’s a list of teams still without a championship trophy. The Denver Nuggets left their caucus in 2023 after reaching the NBA Finals for the first time and defeated the Miami Heat to secure their first championship. A similar feat nearly happened two years earlier when the Phoenix Suns enjoyed a 2-0 lead in the 2021 NBA Finals before the Milwaukee Bucks resurrected into the game to clinch their first NBA title in 50 years.
Six of these 10 teams – the Los Angeles Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Indiana Pacers, New Orleans Pelicans, Orlando Magic, and Phoenix Suns –reached the NBA Playoffs in 2023/24 earning a chance to break the spell. The other four teams – Utah Jazz, Brooklyn Nets, Charlotte Hornets, and Memphis Grizzlies – will have to wait at least through the end of this season to make additional attempts at the NBA top prize.
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That said, let’s run through the intriguing story of five of these NBA teams without a championship trophy.
Minnesota Timberwolves
The Timberwolves are yet to make it to the NBA Finals. The closest they got to the trophy was the 2003/04 conference finals. Although Timberwolves’ Kevin Garnet won the league MVP award, the Los Angeles Lakers, led by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, won the Championship in six games.
Garnett is the Timberwolves’ best player ever. However, he left to play for the Boston Celtics in 2007, where he won a championship. Later, Garnett would say he’d wished he departed from the Timberwolves’ earlier to compete for more trophies.
Minnesota has trouble attracting stars due to its location and market size and has instead had to rely on developing homegrown talents. However, that could change soon after the franchise returned to the conference finals in 2024, with rising superstar Anthony Edwards leading the charge.
Orlando Magic
The Magic are 0-2 in the NBA Finals, after losing to the Hakeem Olajuwon-led Houston Rockets in 1994/95 and to Kobe Bryant’s Lakers in 2008/09. Orlando’s four conference finals appearances occurred in two consecutive seasons (1994/96) with Shaq and Penny Hardaway, and also in 2008/10 with Dwight Howard.
The Magic are among the league’s bottom-10 in all-time winning percentage and do not have a positive defining playoff moment against other franchises. As their name suggests, it’ll take a significant stroke of magic and deliberate shake-up to bring Orlando to the NBA’s limelight, to leave the class of many teams in the league that have never won a title.
Memphis Grizzlies
The Memphis Grizzlies have developed a remarkable basketball culture since their founding in 1995, despite recording little postseason success. As with several others on this list, the Memphis Grizzlies have never made it to the Finals.
The team’s rise to prominence in the “Grit ‘n Grind” era highlighted toughness and slow, deliberate play mode. Although they have garnered a competitive spot in most of the franchise history, they never truly had the talent to offer them tangible chances to win a championship or contend for the big prize. Memphis also had their first finals appearance in 2013, which ended in a four-game sweep to the San Antonio Spurs. However, they have failed to achieve the same feat since they last reached the conference finals for the first time.
New Orleans Pelicans
The Pelicans, who were once the Charlotte Hornets, moved to New Orleans in 2002 before rebranding as the Pelicans in 2013 to honor the state bird. That’s why the NBA considers them an expansion team that began in 2002, even though they technically originated in 1988.
New Orleans Pelicans may have a dramatic off-court history, their on-court tales fall short of the league’s average outings as they remain without a title. They only made the second round of the playoffs twice and have never reached the conference finals.
Indiana Pacers
Indy won three championships in the ABA but hasn’t experienced any similar feat since joining the NBA in 1976. It was one of the many NBA teams buoyed by the greatness of Michael Jordan and Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls in the 1990s but eventually made it to the NBA Finals in 2000. However, they’d lose to a dynastic Lakers who had already marred the hopes of other franchises on this list.
Pacers’ best hands at the time – Reggie Miller, Jalen Rose, and Mark Jackson – did all they could to leave with the coveted trophy, only in vain. They’ve appeared in the conference finals four times since then and nine times overall but have still never won an NBA championship.
Final Thoughts
“You have no choices about how you lose, but you do have a choice about how you come back and prepare to win again.” – Pat Riley
These teams may have had impressive teams and a handful of superstar players throughout their history. However, all of these 10 NBA teams have never won a championship, with some making their first NBA finals appearances without winning. Thankfully, the Denver Nuggets recently left this caucus only last year. That could provide the sufficient encouragement these teams need to put in the required work and break their NBA history jinx shortly.