The 10 Best Teams That Didn’t Win an NBA Championship

Regular Season Record: 62-20
Playoff Result: Lost Western Conference Finals (San Antonio, 4-1)
All-Stars: Steve Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire, Shawn Marion
Accolades: MVP (Steve Nash) Assists Leader (Steve Nash), All-NBA First Team (Steve Nash) All-NBA Second Team (Amar’e Stoudemire), All-NBA Third Team (Shawn Marion), Coach of the Year (Mike D’Antoni)
Basketball was invented in 1891. For much of the first 115 years of its existence the conventional wisdom was that smart offensive strategy dictated a patient approach to getting the best shot. Typically this meant the shortest possible shot, despite the fact that the three-point shot, introduced in the NBA in the 1979-80 season, was worth a full 50% more than a two-point shot. In the mid-2000s Mike D’Antoni turned all of that on its head, and the NBA has never been the same and better for it ever since.

D’Antoni was a journeyman NBA/ABA player in the ‘70s who then spent more than a decade playing in Italy where he retired as the Italian LBA’s all-time leading scorer. He spent most of the ‘90s coaching in the Italian League and coached the Nuggets in the 1999 lockout year to a 14-36 record before getting fired.

D’Antoni was an assistant coach on a promising Suns team featuring Stephon Marbury, Shawn Marion, and Amar’e Stoudemire that went 44-38 in 2002-03. Twenty-one games into the ‘03-’04 season D’Antoni was named head coach after the team got off to an 8-13 start. They did even worse with him at the helm, finishing 29-53. Then the Suns signed Steve Nash and started a basketball revolution.

The combination of Nash, Marion, and Stoudemire was perfect for D’Antoni’s fast motion, high shot volume offense. Dubbed the “Seven Seconds or Less” offense for their approach to shot clock management, the Suns averaged 110.4 points per game, nearly seven points more than the second place Kings, and more than five points more than the previous season’s best offense, the similarly Nash-led Mavs.

Nash won the first of his two consecutive MVPs in 2005, Marion and Stoudemire joined him on All NBA teams, and D’Antoni won Coach of the Year. The Suns finished 62-20 and likely would’ve racked up even more Ws if not for a six-game losing streak in January when Nash was out with an injury.

The only problem with the “Seven Seconds or Less” offense was that it gave opponents plenty of possessions as well, and Phoenix ran into a savvy San Antonio team in the second round of the playoffs. The Spurs rode hot-shooting fourth quarters to steal Games 1 and 2 in Phoenix and eventually put the Suns away in five, also taking the last game of the series on the road. San Antonio would go on to win the Finals that year.

The “Seven Seconds or Less” era would last three more seasons in Phoenix, including a trip to the WCF in ‘06 and another 60-plus win season ended by San Antonio in the playoffs in ‘07. That iteration of the Suns never reached an NBA Finals, but its influence is everywhere in the NBA today,

Regular Season Record: 57-25
Playoff Result: Lost NBA Finals (Toronto, 4-2)
All-Stars: Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson
Accolades: All-NBA First Team (Stephen Curry), All-NBA Second Team (Kevin Durant)
Entering the 2018-19 season, it seemed entirely possible that the Hamptons Five Warriors could join the ‘60s Celtics and ‘90s Bulls as the greatest NBA dynasties of all time. They’d won three of the previous four Finals and had just swept the Cavs the previous June. Kevin Durant and Steph Curry were 30; Draymond Green, Klay Thompson, and Demarcus Cousins were 28. Sure, they’d been pushed to seven games in the ‘18 WCF by James Harden, Chris Paul and the Rockets, but no one was buying Houston futures over Golden State. But a year later KD was in Brooklyn, Klay was beginning a full-season rehab, and, a heartwarming coda championship in ‘22 notwithstanding, the Dubs dynasty was over.

Golden State jumped out to a 10-1 start to the 2018-19 season, but a calf injury to Curry precipitated a 5-8 stretch, including a very uncharacteristic four-game losing streak. Sadly, it would be a sign of things to come.

Despite Curry’s injury, the Warriors won the Pacific Division and No. 1 seed in the West, finishing three games up on the Nuggets and four on the Rockets and Trail Blazers. The offense was still elite, first in the league with KD, Steph, and Klay all averaging 20-plus, but the defense slipped to 13th best in the league.

In the playoffs Golden State cruised through the Western Conference bracket 12-4, but injuries plagued them throughout, with Cousins, Curry, Durant, Igoudala, Thompson, and Kevin Looney all missing time. Infamously, KD ruptured his Achilles while playing through a calf strain, and Thompson tore his ACL while playing through a hamstring strain. It was a Herculean effort for a team of Warriors, but not enough to beat the Kawhi Leonard-led Raptors in the Finals.

Regular Season Record: 64-18
Playoff Result: Lost Western Conference Semifinals (Dallas, 4-3)
All-Stars: Chris Paul, Devin Booker
Accolades: All-NBA First Team (Devin Booker), All-NBA Third Team (Chris Paul), Assists Leader (Chris Paul), Coach of the Year (Monty Williams)
Here’s how one half—one quarter even—can derail a promising franchise.

In 2021 the Suns took the Bucks to six games in the NBA Finals. That year they finished with a very respectable 51 wins but had a young core and a wily vet with a little still left in the tank that promised even more.

The Suns won 64 games in 2021-22, and the young core established itself even more. In their age 25 seasons, Devin Booker and Mikal Bridges finished in the top 5 of the MVP and DPOY voting, Chris Paul was a top 10 MVP finisher and led the league in assists, Deandre Ayton averaged a triple double for the fourth consecutive year as a 23-year-old, and Cam Johnson finished top 3 in the 6th Man of the Year voting at age 25.

Finishing eight games better than anyone in the league, the Suns were the heavy favorites to win the title, but reasons for worry emerged in the first round during a harder than expected six game series with the Pelicans. The Suns traded home wins with the Luka Doncic-led Mavs in the semis, setting up a Game 7 in Phoenix.

And then the young Suns seemed to wilt under the pressure of a G7. Down 10 at the end of the first quarter, the Suns imploded in the second, shooting 4-18 and 0-6 from three and scoring just 10 points in the quarter to go down 57-27 at the half. The Suns trailed by as many as 46 points and were down 92-50 after three quarters in one of the all-time worst face plants in NBA playoffs history.

The next year the Suns would trade Bridges, Johnson, and others to the Nets for Kevin Durant; two days after another blowout playoff loss at home, coach Monty Williams would be fired. The team has cycled through two more coaches since, and only Booker remains from the once promising 2022 core.

Regular Season Record: 59-23
Playoff Result: Lost Western Conference Finals (Los Angeles Lakers, 4-2)
All-Stars: Rasheed Wallace
Accolades: N/A
In hindsight, the Lakers’ threepeat at the top of the 21st Century seems effortless and almost preordained. Led by two icons of the game, LA’s record in the ‘00, ‘01, and ‘02 Finals was a combined 12-3. But the Shaq-Kobe mini dynasty was nearly finished before it could even start.

With 10 minutes to go in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference Finals, the Portland Trail Blazers led the Lakers by 15 points. It was also a veteran Portland squad that should’ve known how to hold a lead.

Led by Scottie Pippen, the Trail Blazers had youth with Rasheed Wallace and Damon Stoudamire entering their primes alongside an emerging Bonzi Wells, and veteran, albeit hobbled leadership from vets like Arvydas Sabonis, Steve Smith, Detlef Schrempf, Brian Grant, and Greg Anthony. They won 59 games in the regular season, second in both the Pacific and the league overall to the Lakers’ 67.

Portland dropped just two games in the first two rounds of the ‘00 playoffs, beating the Timberwolves in four and the Jazz in five. They then fell behind 1-3 to the Lakers before winning Game 5 on the road and Game 6 at home. Entering the fourth quarter of Game 7, they looked poised to pull off an all-time great comeback and upset.

And then came some dreadful shooting from the Blazers (5-23 overall, with Wallace going 3-9 and Smith 1-5), some perhaps questionable calls (Sabonis fouled out and the Lakers shot 18 free throws in the quarter to the Blazers four), and arguably the high-water mark of the Shaq-Kobe era.

Regular Season Record: 67-15
Playoff Result: Lost Western Conference First Round (Golden State, 4-2)
All-Stars: Dirk Nowitzki, Josh Howard
Accolades: MVP (Dirk Nowitzki), All-NBA First Team (Dirk Nowitzki)
How do you respond to blowing a 2-0 lead in the Finals? How about setting a franchise record for wins in the following regular season, with your young star winning MVP? That works. Just don’t follow that by losing in the first round of the playoffs.

The Mavs of the ‘00s were excellent, playing in a conference that included other heavyweights like the Shaq-Kobe Lakers, the Duncan-Parker-Ginobili Spurs, and the Seven Seconds or Less Suns. In 2000-’01, with a lineup led by Nash, Dirk Nowitzki, and Michael Finley, Dallas began a run of 11 straight 50-plus win seasons, including three with 60-plus. It was a core conceived and coached by Don Nelson and built around a flowing offense predicated on Nash’s playmaking and Nowitzki and Finley’s scoring. Nash left for Phoenix after the ‘03-’04 season and Don Nelson resigned late in the ‘04-’05 campaign; the team responded by upping its win total by six games, and reached the Finals in ‘06 with Avery Johnson at the helm.

After that Finals loss, the Mavs entered the ‘06-’07 with a young, talented, and very deep roster, with a rotation that saw 11 regulars average more than 10 minutes a game. Dirk won MVP averaging 24.6/8.9/3.4, Josh Howard made the only All-Star game of his career, and Dallas got key contributions from vets like Jason Terry, Jerry Stackhouse, and Erick Dampier, and youngsters like Devin Harris.

And then the Mavs met the Warriors in the first round of the playoffs, coached by a familiar face: Don Nelson. The architect of the Mavs’ core had returned to coaching for a second stint with the Warriors before the ‘06-’07 season. Golden State needed a 16-5 close to the regular season just to make the playoffs, and then pulled off one of the greatest upsets in NBA playoff history, winning the first game in Dallas and holding serve at home to bounce the Mavs in six. Dallas would lose in the first round three of the next four years, before upsetting the Heat in 2011.

Regular Season Record: 61-21
Playoff Result: Lost Western Conference Finals (Los Angeles Lakers, 4-3)
All-Stars: Chris Webber, Peja Stojakovic
Accolades: All-NBA Second Team (Chris Webber)
What’s the only NBA team to be the subject of a letter from iconic consumer rights advocate Ralph Nader to NBA commissioner David Stern? The 2002 Sacramento Kings. (Well, the Kings and the 2002 Lakers. We’ll explain.)

Beginning in the lockout-shortened 1999 season, the Kings—traditionally a perennial laughingstock—suddenly became one of the most entertaining, and eventually best, teams in the league. That year they hired coach Rick Adelman (who’d taken the Trail Blazers to two Finals in the early ‘90s), traded for Chris Webber, signed free agents Vlade Divac and Scot Pollard, and saw the debut of 1996 draft pick Peja Stojakovic, the quartet that would form the core of the most successful run in franchise history.

Entering the 2001-02 season the Kings had seen steady improvement, albeit without much playoff success. The previous offseason they’d traded point guard Jason “White Chocolate” Williams to the Grizzlies for Mike Bibby. Despite Webber missing the first 20 games of the season, Sacramento finished 61-21, good for first in the NBA, three games ahead of the Spurs and the two-time defending champ Lakers. The Kings ran a balanced attack that saw seven regulars average 10+ points per game; they also featured stout defense led by second team all-defense selection Doug Christie.

Sacramento dropped just two games in the first two rounds of the playoffs, setting up a conference finals clash with the Lakers. Up 3-2 and looking to close out in LA, the Kings trailed by one with 12 seconds left when Bibby was taken out by a Kobe Bryant elbow to the face that was, amazingly, ca lled a foul on Bibby. (Check the video for a play that’s a few things at once: 1. An example of “playoff basketball” in the ‘90s/early ‘00s; 2. Probably a Flagrant 2 in 2026; 3. Most definitely not a foul on Bibby.)

That foul alone, while arguably game- and series-changing, isn’t the reason Ralph Nader was writing letters to David Stern and every NBA fan who didn’t bleed purple and gold was shouting conspiracy. The Kings were whistled for 31 fouls in the game (to the Lakers’ 24), which is not remarkable in itself, but 16 of those were called in the fourth quarter (compared to eight for the LA). The Lakers attempted 27 free throws in the 4th and made 21; they attempted 13 field goals and made five.

Sticking to the script, the Lakers proceeded to win Game 7 on the road in OT, with Webber, Bibby, and especially Christie having poor shooting nights. And the free throws were distributed more equally, with LA taking 33 for the game (and hitting 27) and Sacramento shooting 30 (and making just 16—hit just one of those and this team might be on the other list). The Kings had a couple more very good seasons, including another Pacific Division title over the Lakers the following year, but couldn’t advance past the second round of the playoffs.

And then the footnote. In 2008, disgraced NBA referee Tim Donaghy, convicted of fixing games he officiated, alleged that two of the refs in Game 6 of the 2002 WCF fixed that game because they were “company men” who conspired to favor the Lakers because “it was in the NBA’s interest to add another game to the series.”

Regular Season Record: 65-17
Playoff Result: Lost Western Conference Finals (Golden State, 4-3)
All-Stars: James Harden
Accolades: MVP (James Harden), All-NBA First Team (James Harden), Scoring Champ (James Harden)
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. But if you’ve already missed 20 in a row, maybe try a shorter shot for a little while.

Prior to the ‘17-’18 season the Rockets had an emerging core led by James Harden and role players like Eric Gordon, Trevor Ariza, and Clint Capela. With head coach Mike D’Antoni they were spectacular on offense (their offensive rating was second in the league) and far from it on defense (18th).

In June 2017 Houston GM Daryl Morey traded seven players and a first round pick to the Clippers for Chris Paul, and despite worries that CP3 talents would overlap too much with Harden’s, the addition was genius. With Paul running the show and new addition PJ Tucker shoring up the defense, the Rockets were first in offensive rating, and a much improved sixth in defensive rating, good for a league-best +8.7 net rating. Harden won MVP, six regulars averaged 10-plus points a game, the team set the all-time record for threes in a season, and Houston finished with a franchise-record 65 wins, seven more than the defending champ Warriors.

The Rockets cruised through the first two rounds of the playoffs before injury and an epically bad shooting streak struck. With the series tied at two games a piece, Houston went up 3-2 thanks to seven fourth quarter points from Paul at home in Game 5. But Paul also injured his hamstring late in the game and wouldn’t play for the remainder of the series.

Still, the Rockets led by 11 at halftime of Game 7 at home before going completely cold from deep, at one point missing 27 consecutive threes (Harden was 2-13 on threes for the game; Gordon 2-12). In the final two games of the series Houston was outscored 122-63 in the second half. Paul would finally get to the Finals in ‘21 with the Suns but became the first player to play on four teams who blew 2-0 series leads after Milwaukee topped Phoenix in 6.

Regular Season Record: 67-15
Playoff Result: Lost Western Conference Semifianls (Oklahoma City, 4-2)
All-Stars: Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge
Accolades: Defensive Players of the Year (Kawhi Leonard), All-NBA First Team (Kawhi Leonard), All-NBA Third Team (LaMarcus Aldridge)
Here’s a list of teams from the last 30 years with 65+ wins and a plus-10 net rating: ‘95-’96 Bulls (champs), ‘96-’97 Bulls (champs), ‘07-’08 Celtics (champs), ‘14-’15 Warriors (champs), ‘16-’17 Warriors (champs), ‘24-’25 Thunder (champs), ‘08-’09 Cavs (lost Eastern Conference Finals), ‘15-’16 Warriors (lost Finals); ‘15-’16 Spurs (lost West semis).

The Warriors epic 2015-16 regular season and just as epic 2016 Finals loss obscures the fact that, judging by a key metric of team performance, the 2015-16 Spurs could be called a better team. Of course wins and losses are the key metric of team performance, and San Antonio had six fewer of the former (which is why Golden State appears later on this list). But the ‘15-’16 Spurs were great nonetheless.

Take the net rating alluded to above: Led by Kawhi Leonard, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Tony Parker, the Spurs were fourth in offensive rating at 110.3 and first in defensive rating at 99.0, good for plus 11.3 (the Warriors were 114.5 and 103.8, good for a plus 10.7). And the Spurs weren’t playing in a league with a dozen tanking teams, either. In addition to the Warriors, the West featured a 55-win Thunder team led by Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, and a 53-win Clippers team led by Chris Paul, Deandre Jordan, and an injured Blake Griffin.

The 2015-16 season was the year Kawhi Leonard became a superstar. He was the Defensive Player of the Year the previous season; in ‘15-’16 he defended that title and finished second to Steph Curry in the MVP race. Aldridge had a typically excellent season, Tim Duncan showed flashes of past brilliance in his last year, and franchise stalwarts like Parker, Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw, and Danny Green continued to be one of the best collections of role players in league history.

After sweeping the Grizzlies in the first round and taking a 2-1 lead on the Thunder in the conference semis, the Spurs dropped three straight to OKC, with Leonard having bad shooting performances in Games 4 and 6, and KD and Russ doing peak KD and Russ things for the Thunder. Duncan unexpectedly retired the following summer, and the Spurs had one more 60+-win season before a slow fade until the Wembanyama era.

Regular Season Record: 66-16
Playoff Result: Lost Eastern Conference Finals (Orlando, 4-2)
All-Stars: LeBron James, Mo Williams
Accolades: All-NBA First Team (LeBron James), Coach of the Year (Mike Brown)
On May 20, 2009 LeBron James was 24 and the toast of the NBA. He’d led the Cavs to the Finals two years earlier; in a few weeks he’d win his first MVP and finish second in the Defensive Player of the Year voting. And in 10 days, his tenure in Cleveland and his honeymoon era seemed irredeemably soured, setting in motion a series of events that would change the NBA for the next decade.

LeBron’s ‘08-’09 season was one of the greats of all time. He played 81 games (that won’t happen again), averaging 28.4/7.6/7.2 and played suffocating defense (1.7 steals and 1.1 blocks per game) for a team that went 66-16 and finished with a plus-10 net rating.

The supporting cast was, well, capable (if you can’t say something nice…). Mo Williams averaged 17+ points a game and made the All-Star team; Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Delonte West, and Anderson Varejao rounded out the regular starting lineup, and Ben Wallace, Wally Szczerbiak, and Joe Smith offered a veteran presence. But that’s not exactly a rotation of up-and-comers, and it showed in the playoffs.

The Cavs swept the Pistons and Hawks in the first two rounds of the East bracket, but ran into immediate trouble in the ECF against the Magic. In a 107-106 Game 1 loss at home, LeBron dropped 49 on 20-30 shooting; the rest of the team scored 57 on 23-58. The bench in particular contributed nothing, and Orlando got a balanced attack led by Dwight Howard’s 30/13.

While Cleveland took Games 2 and 5, with LeBron going for 37/14/12 in G5 to stave off elimination, there simply wasn’t enough help for James in a Game 6 loss. LeBron famously left the court without the customary series-capping handshake, and a new narrative was born: LeBron, sore loser in the clutch. He’d win another MVP the following year, but lose in the conference semis and take his talents to South Beach that summer, suddenly one of the most derided players in the league.

Regular Season Record: 73-9
Playoff Result: Lost in NBA Finals (Cleveland, 4-3)
All-Stars: Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green
Accolades: MVP (Stephen Curry), All-NBA First Team (Stephen Curry), All-NBA Second Team (Draymond Green), All-NBA Third Team (Klay Thompson), Scoring Champ (Stephen Curry), Coach of the Year (Steve Kerr)
The best team that didn’t win their sport’s championship…ever? The 2007 New England Patriots would like to join the chat for this ignominious title as well, but just like the ‘07 Pats, the ‘15-’16 Warriors were historically great—until the last 2% of their season.

How good were the Warriors in the ‘15-’16 regular season? They started 24-0, had a 19-1 stretch in March, and set the single-season wins record with 73. Steph Curry won the MVP, and the team started three Hall of Famers (Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson) and had a fourth likely HOFer coming off the bench (Andre Igoudala). Harrison Barnes, Shaun Livingston, Leandro Barbosa, and Festus Ezell rounded out the regular rotation that saw 11 players average more than 10 minutes a game in the regular season.

The Western Conference was tough that year, too: the Spurs won 67 (fun fact: the Spurs actually had a higher net rating than the Dubs that season) and the Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook Thunder won 55 and stretched the Warriors to seven games in the Western Conference Finals.

And then? Then the team that would’ve been either No. 1 or 2 on the Greatest NBA Champs of the Past 30 Years list blew a 3-1 lead in the Finals. The series went left for the Warriors at the end of Game 4 when Green took a swing at LeBron James in the closing minutes. After the contest Green was assessed a flagrant foul, his fourth of the postseason, which resulted in his suspension for Game 5.

Without Draymond, Golden State dropped Game 5 at home; with Draymond back they lost Game 6 in Cleveland when LeBron authored one of the greatest Finals performances of all-time and Steph was ejected for throwing his mouthpiece into the stands after fouling out. And then a classic Game 7: 20 lead changes, 11 ties, LeBron’s block, Kyrie’s three, and a historic Cavs victory despite a near triple-double from Green.