Fans and pundits look to NBA playoff success as a key measurement when evaluating a player's career. But just getting to the postseason proved to be an insurmountable hurdle for many players in the league's history, with eight players appearing in more than 500 career games without ever taking the court in a playoff game.
Since the 2004-05 season, when the now-Charlotte Hornets returned to the NBA after a two-year absence, 16 of the league's 30 teams advance to the NBA playoffs each year, a 53.3 percent rate. That playoff participation bar has been as high as 80 percent (eight of 10 teams qualified for the postseason in 1966-67) with a low of 47.1 percent from 1970-71 through 1973-74 when there were 17 franchises and eight playoff spots available.
One player stands out as the unluckiest in history, playing more than a decade without experiencing the NBA playoffs even once.
Which player has played the most games without making the playoffs?
No one embodied the agony of defeat more in NBA history than Tom Van Arsdale, a wing who played for five teams from 1965-77 without making a playoff appearance. While not a Wayne Gretzky-type of dominance of the record, Van Arsdale's 929 career games without making the playoffs are nearly 250 ahead of the next player on the list, center Otto Moore (682 games from 1968-77).
Timing was part of Van Arsdale's problem. He was traded from the playoff-bound Detroit Pistons to the Cincinnati Royals during the 1967-68 season. Van Arsdale was also traded from the Philadelphia 76ers in 1974-75, the year before they returned to the postseason, and joined his twin brother Dick Van Arsdale with the Phoenix Suns in 1976-77, the year after they reached the NBA Finals.
With the Royals, Van Arsdale was an All-Star each year between 1970-72 (the NBA required at least one representative per team until 1974). For his career, he averaged 15.3 points, 4.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game on 43.1 percent shooting.
He owns another historical footnote as a member of the 76ers historically awful team in 1972-73, still the only team to fail to win at least 10 games in an 82-game season. He was traded from the Kansas City-Omaha Kings (which moved that season from Cincinnati) and played 30 games for the infamous 9-73ers.
There is one current player who is more than halfway to Van Arsdale's mark, however.
Which active player has played the most games without making the playoffs?
Among current players, Indiana Pacers sharpshooter Buddy Hield is the runaway leader in most games without a playoff appearance. None of his 548 career games was in the postseason, though the Pacers finished five games out of the final play-in berth in the Eastern Conference in 2022-23.
Taken sixth overall by the New Orleans Pelicans in 2016, Hield was traded to the Sacramento Kings during his rookie year. This explains much of his lack of postseason experience, as the Kings missed the playoffs for a record 16 consecutive years from 2007-22 before breaking through last season — a year after trading Hield to Indiana.
He shot 42.5 percent on 8.5 3-point attempts per game last season, the third time in his seven-year career he has topped 42 percent from deep and averaged 16.8 points, 5.0 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 31.0 minutes per game. Hield doesn't shoot much from inside the arc, taking 4.5 attempts a night last season and hitting 51.8 percent.
Hield is the runaway leader among active players, with 200 more games than second-place Lauri Markkanen, who played four years with the Chicago Bulls and one with the Cleveland Cavaliers before joining the Utah Jazz last season. He earned his first All-Star nod and claimed the Most Improved Player award in 2022-23.
Coaches are hired and fired based on their success, particularly in the playoffs, but one managed to last five-plus years in the league without a taste of the postseason.
Who coached the most games without making the playoffs?
Bobby "Slick" Leonard was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014 for his coaching success, yet in parts of six NBA seasons Leonard never coached a postseason game.
Leonard, who died in 2021 at the age of 88, coached the Chicago Zephyrs for the second half of the 1962-63 season — the franchise's second year in the NBA — and moved with the team when it became the Baltimore Bullets (now the Washington Wizards) the following season. He resigned after the 1963-64 season with a 44-78 record.
When the Indiana Pacers entered the NBA from the old American Basketball Association in 1976, Leonard had been coaching the club for eight seasons. But the team went 142-186 over their first your NBA campaigns, missing the playoffs each year and Leonard was fired in June 1980.
He coached a record 450 games without reaching the playoffs, finishing with a career mark of 186-264.
But he led the most decorated franchise in ABA history, leading Indiana to three championships in four seasons from 1969-73. The Pacers also played in the ABA Finals in both 1969 and 1975 and Leonard posted a 387-270 record in the regular season and a 69-47 mark in the ABA playoffs.