Top 5 NBA players of all time to have never played in the Playoffs

#3 Tom Van Arsdale

Tom Van Arsdale is one of the best players to never play in the postseason.

No player has appeared in as many NBA games without making the NBA Playoffs as Tom Van Arsdale, with 929 regular-season appearances.

Van Arsdale played in the NBA from 1965 to 1977, and he played for five different teams. He earned three All-Star selections in his career, the most by a player who never appeared in the postseason.

Moreover, Van Arsdale scored 14,232 career points, which is also a record for an NBA athlete who never reached the playoffs with his team. The wing player averaged 15 points and four rebounds per game in his NBA career, and averaged over 20 points per game a couple of times in his career.

---

#2 Brandon Ingram

New Orleans Pelicans Media Day.

By this point in his NBA career, Brandon Ingram should've been in the NBA Playoffs at least twice. The first one should've come in the 2018-19 season, when he had LeBron James as a teammate in the LA Lakers' organization, and last year, when the New Orleans Pelicans had one of the most promising young rosters in the league.

It simply shows that there are no guarantees in the NBA, as injuries got in the way of the 2018-19 LA Lakers and bad defense hindered last year's Pelicans. Ingram could be off this list after the upcoming season, but nothing is certain.

Ingram has been in the NBA for five full seasons, with the LA Lakers and New Orleans Pelicans, and he's been named to one All-Star Game and won a Most Improved Player award.

In his career (313 games), Ingram averages 17.8 points and five rebounds per game with 46/36/75 shooting splits.

---

#1 Zach LaVine

Zach LaVine #8 of the Chicago Bulls shoots a basket.

Zach LaVine would not like to be first on such a list, but he might be off this one after the 2021-22 NBA season, especially seeing the construction of the Chicago Bulls heading into the upcoming campaign.

LaVine will be playing in his eighth NBA season next year, and he is already 20th among players who have appeared in most regular-season games without playing in the postseason.

He had no hope of entering the NBA Playoffs during his first three seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, while his Chicago Bulls were two games away from entering last year's Play-In tournament for a chance at entering the first round of the NBA Playoffs.

With LaVine already earning an All-Star spot and becoming one of the best and most efficient scorers in the league, it might be a matter of time before the Bulls make the postseason with LaVine and Nikola Vucevic as the core and DeMar DeRozan and Lonzo Ball alongside them.

---