The New York Knicks finally snapped their long wait in June, beating the San Antonio Spurs in five games to win their first NBA championship since 1973. That title ended 53 years of frustration at Madison Square Garden and also knocked the Knicks out of the conversation for the league’s longest active droughts.
What’s left is a strangely familiar list. Twenty of the NBA’s 30 franchises have won at least one championship, while 10 still haven’t. Among the 20 that have tasted it, five are now stuck in a drought that has stretched beyond 40 years, adding up to 283 seasons without another banner.
The franchise carrying the heaviest burden is Sacramento. The Kings last won in 1951, back when they were the Rochester Royals and beat the Knicks in seven games.
Since then, the team has moved from Rochester to Cincinnati to Kansas City and eventually to Sacramento in 1985, but the Finals have stayed out of reach. The Kings also own the league’s longest playoff drought, a brutal 16 straight seasons from 2006 to 2023.
Atlanta sits next on the list at 68 seasons. The Hawks were in St.
Louis when they won in 1958, taking down a Boston Celtics team that was without an injured Bill Russell. Bob Pettit poured in 50 points in the clincher.
Atlanta then lost the rematch in 1960 and again in 1961 before the franchise moved to Atlanta in 1968.
Portland’s only championship came in 1977, when Bill Walton earned Finals MVP and the Trail Blazers rallied from two games down to beat the Philadelphia 76ers. They got back to the Finals in 1990 and 1992, only to fall to Detroit and then Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.
Washington’s lone title came a year later, in 1978, when the Bullets beat the Seattle SuperSonics in seven games and Wes Unseld was named Finals MVP. Seattle won the rematch the following year, and Washington has not been back since. The Bullets name was dropped in 1997.
Philadelphia is the shortest drought on the list, but it still reaches 43 seasons. The 76ers’ last championship came in 1983, when Moses Malone and Julius Erving swept the Los Angeles Lakers. Malone had predicted a 12-0 playoff run, and the team finished 12-1.
Among these long-suffering franchises, Philadelphia looks like the best bet to climb off the list first. The source material points to LeBron James signing a two-year deal in Philadelphia in July, joining Jaylen Brown, Joel Embiid, Tyrese Maxey and VJ Edgecombe.
There are also 10 teams that have never won it at all: the Phoenix Suns, LA Clippers, Utah Jazz, Indiana Pacers, Brooklyn Nets, Orlando Magic, Minnesota Timberwolves, Charlotte Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies and New Orleans Pelicans. The Suns are the oldest of that group at 58 seasons.
The Pacers and Nets both won ABA titles before joining the NBA in 1976, and those don’t count here. The Clippers, Timberwolves, Hornets, Grizzlies and Pelicans have never even reached the Finals.
Of every drought on the board, the youngest one is the one that appears closest to ending.
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