NBA: 5 Longest Playoff Appearance Streaks EVER

#2 Portland Trail Blazers 1983-2003, 21 seasons

Clyde Drexler was a very good player but couldn't lead the Blazers to a Finals victory in his two appearances.

What's crazy about this streak is the Blazers were one season away from having the all-time record at 22 straight playoff appearances. Another interesting factoid is the Blazers accomplished this streak while going through six coaches. Usually, when a franchise has a streak like this, you will see two, maybe three coaches max. This, however, can be seen as a testament to ownership and management, as they were able to select the correct players and coaches to lead their teams time after time.

Portland, like the Jazz, never ended up reaching the ultimate mountaintop, as they fell short of winning the Finals in their two appearances (1990 & 1992) during this streak. In addition to these finals appearances, they made the Conference Finals thrice. Oddly, compared with other streaks, they were eliminated a whopping 14 times, 66% of their appearances in this streak.

This could be due to the fact that there was not one iconic player who defined this franchise over their 21 years of excellence. Players such as Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter, Rasheed Wallace, and Damon Stoudemire were apart of the franchise during these seasons, but none were ever the best at their position or even top 5 NBA players, ones who could lead them over the hump and to the title.

Instead, the fans in the Pacific Northwest had to settle for watching their team make the Playoffs year-after-year but fall short of the ultimate goal.