Ever since the NBA was founded in 1946, the league has been defined by its superstar players and prolific dynasties – with two teams (the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers) winning 17 championships apiece and five teams combining to take home more than two-thirds of all titles in league history.
That hasn’t left many trophies up for grabs for the rest of the league. Entering the 2023-24 NBA Playoffs, 10 teams still hadn’t won their first NBA championship.
- Phoenix Suns
- Memphis Grizzlies
- Minnesota Timberwolves
- Brooklyn Nets
- Indiana Pacers
- Charlotte Hornets
- New Orleans Pelicans
- Utah Jazz
- Orlando Magic
- Los Angeles Clippers
A first-time champion came last season when the Denver Nuggets reached the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history and beat the Miami Heat to secure the championship. It almost happened two years earlier, when the Phoenix Suns took a 2-0 lead in the 2021 NBA Finals before the Milwaukee Bucks stormed back for their first title in 50 years.
The Suns remain among those 10 teams who entered the 2023-24 postseason in pursuit of their first NBA championship. Six of them – the Los Angeles Clippers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Indiana Pacers, New Orleans Pelicans, Orlando Magic and Suns – reached the playoffs in 2023-24, giving them a chance to break the spell.
Meanwhile, the other four teams – the Charlotte Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies, Brooklyn Nets and Utah Jazz – will have to wait at least one more season.
If you think one of those teams will end their title drought, NBA betting sites offer a futures market for a first-time NBA champion, which includes some of the title favorites grouped together in one catch-all prop bet.
Betting on a First-Time NBA Winner
NBA futures wagering is a popular market during the offseason, regular season and playoffs.
Suppose you wait until the playoffs to make a bet. In that case, you have a clearer picture of a team’s potential championship path – but there could be value in betting on an unlikely outcome earlier in the season before the postseason field is set.
Entering the 2023-24 postseason, DraftKings Sportsbook offered a prop bet on whether we’ll see a first-time NBA champion this season.
- “Yes” to a first-time champion: +390
- “No” to a first-time champion: -550
At +390, the “yes” side of this wager implies a 20.4% chance for a first-time champion, which has happened 21 times in 77 years (27.3%) and five times over the last 24 seasons (20.8%).
That said, we’ve seen three first-time winners in the last eight years (37.5%) – led by the reigning champion Denver Nuggets, who enter the playoffs with the second-best odds to win it all behind the Boston Celtics.
The other two first-time winners within the last decade have done so despite remarkable odds against them.
In 2016, the Cleveland Cavaliers became the first team in NBA history to come back from a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals – outlasting a Golden State Warriors team that had won it all the year before and posted a record-setting 73-9 W-L mark during the 2015-16 regular season.
Three years later, the Toronto Raptors outlasted the 2019 Warriors – who had won two straight titles after their 2016 defeat – in Kawhi Leonard’s lone season with the franchise, aided by injuries to Kevin Durant (torn Achilles) and Klay Thompson (torn ACL) in the final two games of that historic six-game series.
While it may seem like a stretch to see first-time champions win it all in back-to-back seasons – which hasn’t happened since the Washington Bullets (1977-78) and Seattle SuperSonics (1978-79) pulled it off almost 50 years ago – the “yes” side of this wager includes some of the top contenders on the NBA title oddsboard.
NBA Franchises Without a Title
Now that you know the list of teams without a championship trophy and the odds that sportsbooks are willing to offer for a first-time winner, let’s take a deeper dive into the teams who have yet to win it all in front of the basketball world.
Phoenix Suns
The Suns are one of the most storied franchises to have never won a title. They have the fifth-best winning percentage all-time among active teams and the second-best percentage among teams that have not won a championship (the best is the Utah Jazz). Phoenix has also been home to 11 Hall of Famers and two MVPs (Charles Barkley and Steve Nash).
Despite its history, Phoenix has made only three Finals (1976, 1993, and 2021). They lost all of those series in six games.
Worse yet, the Suns’ franchise is in the unenviable position of being the oldest to have never won a title. They got their start in 1968, and the next-closest title-less team, the Los Angeles Clippers, formed in 1970.
Memphis Grizzlies
The Grizzlies were founded in 1995 and have a great basketball culture but have found little postseason success. Like several others on this list, they have never made it to the Finals.
The team rose to prominence in the “Grit ‘n Grind” era that emphasized toughness and slow, deliberate play. Although they were competitive most years, they never had the talent to truly contend for the title.
Memphis also has just one conference finals appearance, which ended in a four-game sweep in 2013 at the hands of the San Antonio Spurs.
Minnesota Timberwolves
The Timberwolves have also never made it to the NBA Finals. The closest they got was the conference finals in the 2003-04 season, during which Kevin Garnett won league MVP. Minnesota fell to the Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant-led Lakers in six games.
Garnett is the best to ever play for the franchise, but even he skipped town in 2007 and went to play for the Boston Celtics, where he won a championship. He later said he wished he’d left sooner to compete for more titles.
Minnesota has trouble attracting stars because of its location and market size and instead has to develop homegrown talent. For reference, eight of the last 21 Finals MVPs (38.1%) did not start their careers with the team they won the championship.
Brooklyn Nets
The Nets, formerly of New Jersey, have participated in two NBA Finals, and they just so happened to be in back-to-back seasons in 2002 and 2003.
Their first Finals appearance ended in a four-game sweep to the same Shaq-Kobe Lakers that took out Garnett and others contending for the title. They then lost to Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and the Spurs in six games.
The 2021 Nets, led by MVPs Durant and James Harden and All-Pro point guard Kyrie Irving – who helped lead Cleveland to its first-ever title in 2016 – were supposed to break the curse but came up short due to injuries and internal conflicts. Harden was traded the following season, and Irving and Durant followed suit the season after.
Indiana Pacers
Indy won three championships in the ABA but has not broken through since joining the NBA in 1976.
It was one of many teams befuddled by the greatness of Michael Jordan in the 1990s but finally broke through and reached the NBA Finals in 2000. They ran into the buzzsaw that was the dynastic Lakers, who had already speared the hopes of other franchises on this list.
Despite the best efforts of Reggie Miller, Jalen Rose and Mark Jackson, the Pacers lost in a gentleman’s sweep. They’ve appeared in the conference finals three times since and eight times overall but have not made it back to the grand stage.
Charlotte Hornets
The Hornets have a strange story. A team called the Charlotte Hornets was founded in 1988, but it was not this franchise, though they have assumed their history. Instead, they were founded as the Charlotte Bobcats in 2004 after the Hornets moved to New Orleans.
There’s a saying that greatness does not come without sacrifice. It rings true in Charlotte because as great as Jordan was as a player, he sacrificed his success as an owner while overseeing one of the worst teams in the league.
Taken over by Jordan in 2010, the Hornets are one of few teams that have never made the conference finals. Worse, they have only made it to the Conference Semifinals four times and not once since 2002, and Jordan has since sold his stake in the team.
New Orleans Pelicans
The Pelicans were also once the Charlotte Hornets. Confusing, right?
They moved to New Orleans in 2002 and rebranded as the Pelicans in 2013 to honor the state bird. The NBA, as of 2014, considers them an expansion team that started in 2002, even though they technically originated in 1988.
Regardless of their off-court history, the on-court tale is less than impressive. They have made the second round of the playoffs just twice and have never reached the conference finals, making them one of six teams that have failed to do so.
Utah Jazz
The Jazz are one of the unluckiest teams.
Utah’s best chances to win a championship came in 1997 and 1998 when they were defeated by the Chicago Bulls in the second three-peat. The last play of the second loss was famously Jordan’s last shot as a Bull, a stepback jumper over Byron Russell to win the Finals.
Utah made the conference finals five times in the 90s and once in 2007 but is still waiting for its chance to break through and win a title.
Orlando Magic
The Magic are 0-2 in the NBA Finals. They were swept by the Hakeem Olajuwon-led Houston Rockets in 1994-95 and lost to Kobe’s Lakers in 2008-09.
Orlando’s four conference finals appearances came in two back-to-back seasons, the first in 1994-95 and 1995-96 with Shaq and Penny Hardaway, then in 2008-09 and 2009-10 with Dwight Howard.
The Magic are bottom-10 in all-time winning percentage and do not have a positive defining playoff moment that holds up against other NBA teams. It could take a culture shake-up to bring greatness to Orlando.
Los Angeles Clippers
The Clippers are often viewed as the little brother in Los Angeles because of the Lakers’ sustained dominance and the Clippers’ lack thereof.
LAC made the conference finals for the first time in franchise history in the 2020-21 season. They were forced to play the Suns without their best player, Kawhi Leonard, who was injured in Game 4 of the previous round and couldn’t help the team advance further in the postseason.
Clippers fans still have a reason to be optimistic. They’ve made the playoffs in 11 of the last 13 seasons, emerging as a force to be reckoned with in the Western Conference.
