the Oklahoma City Thunder It is 2024-2025 The American Professional League Champions after staying alive Pesrez The team that prompted them to seven games. It was one of the great aspects of this series, even outside the games itself, that it was a match between two teams in the midst of rotation contracts.
The last time that thunder was the heroes, Seattle Supersonx: This happened in 1979, 46 years ago and decades before the team moved to Oklahoma. And purres? While they were the heroes of the American Basketball Association on three occasions – 1970, 72 and 73 – they have not yet raised Larry O’Brien.
The drought of thunder ended, while the Paces team is rising in another year: it has now been 49 years since Paces joined the American Professional League, all without championship, and even longer than that if you want to return to ABA/NBA Merger. Just focus on the history of the American Professional League, however, the championship lines in Baksss do not occupy their ranks “only” seventh in the league, draw with Brooklyn windowThose who joined the American Professional League in 1976.
[Related: Thunder Dominate Shorthanded Pacers to Win First NBA Title in OKC]
Here are the six teams that were waiting for a longer period than the Pacers (and Nets) for their American Professional League title.
Utah Jazz: 51 years old
Karl Malon and John Stockon made such faces often against bulls over two years of the American Professional League. (Daniel Lebit/AFP via Getty Images)
the jazz He joined the American Professional League in 1974, as a team expanding from New Orleans. The highest player in those days was Maravic’s house, but he was almost not enough: Jazz will move to Utah in 1979, and the qualifiers will not be made for the first time until the 1983-1984 season. Jazz John Stockon chose in the 1984 draft with the selection of the sixteenth, and Carl Malon with the thirteenth selection after a year, and thanks to a large part of it to the presence of these celebrity hall, jazz will make the qualifiers every year until the 2003-2004 season.
Utah reached the American Professional League Finals in 1997 and 1998, with 64-18 and 64-20 seasons, and will lose in front of Michael Jordan in Chicago Bulls in both cases. Utah has not returned to the American Professional League finals since then, and in the 2024-2025 season, the worst record in the league, on 17-65. To add an insult to the injury, although there is the best potential for the lottery, Dallas Maverx He won the selection of the first chapters in the American Professional League draft 2025, while jazz had to settle for no. 5.
New York Nix: 52 years old
The last chance of Nix to win the American Professional League finals against Ructas Hakim Olaguon, but New York lost games 6 and 7. The 1999 finals were almost almost. (Photography by John Bever
the Nix She had an opportunity to scan this series in these qualifiers, but she lost in the finals of the eastern conference against Pacers in six games. Unlike jazz, they have already won: KNICKS team was the last champion in 1973, their second title in Four Seasons, with both teams led by Walt Fraser.
Nix will not return to the American Professional League finals until 1994 with Patrick Intig, their big star. They will lose games 6 and 7 to Missilesbut. The game 6 ended at the Rockkets’ Hakeem Olajuwon Center, with a three-score by John Starks, where he won 86-84 and forced the 7 game, which saw that Starks only go against 18 from the field in Knicks, lost with six points only.
New York will return to the finals in 1999 against TottenhamBut it will lose 4-1, and put them on the other side of the American Professional League championship in San Antonio. Nix has reached the Eastern Conference Finals twice since then, but not further.
Los Angeles Clippers: 55 years old
The Clippers 2020-2021 forced a 6 game in Los Angeles behind 41 points for Paul George and 13 rebounds, but they had no answers to a crime of casual in the decisive competition they lost 130-103. (Photo by Harry Kevi/Getty Pictures)
the Cleibers She did not win the American Professional League title, respectively, 55 years old. They were brought to the league in 1970 Kabafalo Bavors before moving to San Diego in 1977, where Klebers was renamed. In 1984, Cleibers moved again to Los Angeles, to become the second team in the city in more than one way. while Lakes She won nine additional championships since 84, when the clips came to Los Angeles, Clubers topped in the finals of one Western conference completely, with the appearance of the American Professional League Finals.
It is not that Cleibers has been bad recently, either: they made the qualifiers 13 times this century, including in the four of the past five years and 12 times since 2011-2012. They were not only able to overcome the challenges of the Western conference, despite the loss of proverbs Nuggets On multiple occasions, the representative of the Western Conference last year The MAVERICKS, Make up In the Western Conference of 2021, and a defeat by the 2019 Western Conference Champion, Warriors.
Phoenix Suns: 57 years old
Charles Barclay won the American Professional League in the 1992-1993 season, but Sanz is still able to stop the bulls in the finals. (Photo by John and.
It entered the American Professional League Suns in 1968 as an expansion team, and they were almost surprisingly qualified from the gate: they finished 16-66 in their first season, but they ranked third or fourth in their division during the next six years after that, they reached the American Professional League finals of 1976 despite being only 42-40. However, they will lose against Celkus in six games, and they will not achieve it again until 93, when Jordan Bolls won the third consecutive American League title in a row.
After Cleibers defeated the finals in 2021, the sun recently faced a team that was not part of a historic strain. However, this team still has AnttokounmpoWho moved to an average of more than 35 points for each game to bring Dollars Return from the bottom of 2-0 to four in a row and the first American Professional League championship since 1971, and end their drought.
In 2025, Phoenix was missed for the first time since the 2019-2020 season, then Trading star Kevin Durant To the missiles for Gallin Greenand Delon Brooks And six options, including choosing the first round of Ructas 2025. They are the oldest privilege in the American Professional League for not winning a championship once.
Atlanta Hoks: 67 years old
Falcons Celtix Bill Russell once defeated the American Professional League finals in 1958, but then unprecedented, nor any other team, again. (Getty)
Before they are Atlanta HawksThey were St. Louis Hoks. They were from Milwaukee Hawks and Tri-Cities Blackhawks in the years before the move to St. Louis as well, but this transfer to St. Louis in 1955 matters here, because in the 1958 USA’s Professional League finals, he defeated hawks. Boston Celkus In six games.
To put it in its right perspective since when it was, Tommy Hinson and Bill Russell were both on Celtics, and they were 23 years old. Bob Kosi was 29 years old. Boston won its first championship in the US Professional League in the previous season, against these same hawks-C’s now has 18 of them, with Russell ending with more episodes of the fingers before he was called a profession. Falcons? They have in 1958. They reached the finals again in both 1960 and 1961, but this is related to everything.
The team moved to Atlanta and the eastern conference for the 1968 season, and has not reached the American Professional League finals since then: They reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 2015, when they lost in front of CavaliersAnd again in 2021, when ANTOKONMPO dropped it on their way to end their own line. Atlanta has missed the qualifiers in both the past two years.
Kings of Sacramento: 74 years old
Sacramento kings 2022-2023 picked the longest drought after the season in the history of the American Professional League for a sufficient period to lose them against Steve Curry and the warriors. (Photo by Ezra Show/Getty Erch)
Unlike Suns, Clippers and Jazz, Kings Ownership He won the American Professional League. The problem is that any of these difference precedes, as well as ABA. The kings joined the National Basketball League in 1945, when they were known as Rochester Royal-Oua, a semi-Pro team for more than two decades. They joined the American Basketball Association in 1948 with three other teams from NBL, then NBL and Baa merged together into the American Professional League before the 1949 season.
They are still known as Rochester Royals at this stage, they were defeating Nix in 1951 for the first time in the American Professional League Championship … which has since turned into only The American Professional League Championship. Despite the American professional league races itself, this is also the emergence of the US Professional League finals for the privilege. They moved to Cincinnati for the 1957 season, then to Kansas City-when-where kings-in 1972 will be renamed. They became just Kansas City kings in 1975, then they moved to Sacramento in 1985, where they have since then. They lost the Western conference finals at the time – in 1981 in front of the missiles, and in 2002 in front of Lakers – but that’s all.
From the 2006-2007 season to 2021-2022, kings did not reach the qualifiers, which is the longest drought after the season in the league history. This was briefly eliminated with the exit from the first round against Warriors in 2023, although the kings are the third seed in the West and the Sixth. The qualifiers were missed in the last two seasons-they just missed 46-36 in a crowded field in 2023-2024, then they ended in the ninth again but less than 500 this season.
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