NBA: 5 Teams with the longest active playoff droughts in the Association

3. Houston Rockets - 4 seasons

After James Harden forcefully pushed his way out of Houston a few years ago, the Rockets naturally fell into a rebuild. It was probably time for the Rockets to pivot away from Harden but it was far from ideal for a team that didn't really have a young core in place. Nevertheless, over the last few years, that's what Houston has been building. And on paper, the Rockets do have an increasingly talented young core. The big question is whether the Rockets will continue to show the patience that it's going to take for this young core to fully blossom. There's no guarantee that will the team's recent transactional activity.

The front office could be tired of this four-year playoff drought and could seemingly make a bold move at any point; signing Fred VanVleet and Dillon Brooks last summer could've been the first sign of that.

Nevertheless, at least for now, I fully expect this playoff drought to continue for at least one more season unless there's a big move that is made by the Rockets that we can't envision at the moment.