Impressive professional careers don't guarantee that you have won the most prestigious prize, especially in the NBA. We have seen a few great players who had a wonderful career and are household names in basketball betting, even winning multiple individual trophies, but came up short of claiming the ultimate trophy, the Larry O'Brien championship title.
This unfortunate fate of these NBA greats comes in different factors such as injuries, adversaries and just pure bad luck overall. Talk about staked NBA odds against them. The silver linings are the lasting influence and outstanding individual honors they collected in their respective tenures in the association as a player.
Today, we listed the top seven NBA players (retired) who were unlucky enough not to lift the NBA title and wear a championship ring. Current players such as Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook and James Harden are some of the few top names who haven't tasted a championship in their careers yet.
Elgin Baylor
Being the 1958 top overall pick, an 11-time NBA All-Star and 10-time All-NBA First Team, Elgin Baylor had an illustrious 14-year career with the Minneapolis/Los Angeles Lakers but was short of winning an NBA title. He had eight tries to win in the finals but couldn't pull it off as the Boston Celtics-led Bill Russell crushed his title aspirations. In the early parts of the 1971-72 season, Baylor was forced to retire due to a knee injury, but it was the same year that his team won the title, making him one of the best NBA players never to win a championship.