The 2011-2012 NBA basketball season is projected to be a very challenging season, more so than your usual season of NBA basketball. Due to the contracted schedule, shortened mini-camps and free agent period, and the weakness of the draft, this season will have a lot in common with the last lockout-shortened season back in 1998-1999.But first let’s take a quick recap of the 98-99 season.
The San Antonio Spurs won the championship that year behind the outstanding play of 22-year-old Tim Duncan. Duncan was in his second season in the league but was fortunate enough to be drafted by a good team. The other four starters on the team were David Robinson, Mario Elie, Sean Elliot, and Avery Johnson.
Duncan was the only starter that year under the age of 30 so Greg Popovich really rode Duncan offensively all season. Duncan played over 39 minutes-per-game during the 50-game regular season while most of the veterans on the team were limited to around 30 minutes-per-game . The Spurs would be the number one playoff seed in the West that year.
Popovich limiting the minutes of his older players was helpful in keeping them fresh and healthy for the post season. The team they faced off against in the Finals didn’t do as good of a job of time management though and paid for it.
The New York Knicks couldn’t afford to rest Patrick Ewing the way the Spurs rested their older players since the Knicks barely made it into the playoffs as an eighth seed. During the regular season, Ewing would only play in 38 of 50 games and averaged over 34 minutes-per-game.
Being an eighth seed did have an upside being that it gave the Knicks a favorable matchup versus the Miami Heat. Ewing was detrimental in helping the Knicks get past the Heat and his fellow Georgetown alumnus Alonzo Mourning in the first round of the playoffs.
Ewing would go down to injury eleven games into the post season though leaving Jeff Van Gundy to rework his offensive and defensive schemes around the younger legs of Latrell Spreewell, Marcus Camby and Allan Houston. It worked and the Knicks would advance past the Atlanta Hawks and a super-deep Indiana Pacers squad to meet the Spurs in the Finals.
So what if anything can we glean from that season that will help prepare us for what we can expect this season? Well there are a few things from the 98-99 season that will help determine who raises the Larry O’Brien Trophy by season’s end.
- Established teams have a better chance of making the playoffs.
Veteran teams that were accustomed to making the playoffs littered the post season landscape that year. The short off-season makes it harder for younger teams to jell but veterans know what it takes to get their teams into the post season. Also the familiarity of working together makes it easier for players to get on the same page.
- You can’t overwork your over-30 players
Teams like the Houston Rockets, Utah Jazz, Atlanta Hawks, Indiana Pacers and the Knicks may have leaned a little too heavily on their oldest players during the regular season making them less effective during the playoffs. A compacted season means more back-to-back games which wears on older players.
- Having depth is crucial during a short season
The four teams that made it to the conference finals were deep. The Knicks had Spreewell, Chris Childs and Chris Dudley as bench players during the playoffs. Camby was also a bench player up until Ewing went down with an injury. The Trailblazers had Rasheed Wallace, Jim Jackson and Greg Anthony coming off the bench. The Pacers almost had another team coming off the bench with reserves Jalen Rose, Antonio Davis, Sam Perkins, and Travis Best coming off the bench. The Spurs were also deep with Malik Rose, Steve Kerr, Will Perdue, Antonio Daniels and Jaren Jackson giving them meaningful minutes. Deep teams can limit the amount of minutes that veterans play and having a deep bench is great insurance against costly injuries.
- Rookies will have no impact in the playoffs.
This was a pretty lame draft so that’s an easy prediction but there were some pretty good players in the 1998 draft. Vince Carter, Paul Pierce, Antawn Jamison and Dirk Nowitzki were all drafted that year but as you know the best talent is usually drafted by the worse teams and neither one of these players’ teams made the playoffs. There were some notable second and third-year players who were on playoff rosters that year though like Rasheed Wallace, Kobe Bryant, Derek Fisher, Antonio Daniels, Jermaine O’Neal and Tim Duncan.
- Lastly, teams with stars under-30 have the potential to make the biggest noise in the playoffs.
Sure the Knicks and Spurs had a lot of aging vets on their rosters but the guys that did the heavy lifting through the season and playoffs were their under-30 stars. Spreewell, Allan Houston and Duncan were the driving forces behind their teams’ deep advancement in the playoffs but there were a lot of notable under-30 stars whose teams made noise in the post season that year. Chris Webber (Sacramento Kings), Jason Kidd (Phoenix Suns), Allen Iverson (Philadelphia 76ers), Shaquille O’Neal (Los Angeles Lakers), Penny Hardaway (Orlando Magic), Isaiah Rider (Portland Trailblazers), Steve Smith (Atlanta Hawks) and Alonzo Mourning (Miami Heat) were all the driving forces behind their teams making the playoffs that season.
The teams that bring the most of these elements to the table are the teams that will have the most success this year. This bodes well for teams like the Miami Heat, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trailblazers, Memphis Grizzlies, and the Chicago Bulls. Teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio Spurs and the Boston Celtics will probably make the playoffs but they will have problems once they reach the post season if they aren’t able to strengthen their benches. The Lakers had a hard enough time finding consistency during the regular season last year and it carried over into the playoffs.
The Dallas Mavericks will probably be back in the playoffs but it doesn’t help that of the players who logged the most minutes for them in the playoffs, they lost the only two players who were under-30. The Mavs will continue to be a deep team though having added Vince Carter and Lamar Odom to replace Tyson Chandler and JJ Barea. Still those younger legs will be missed as will be Chandlers’ defensive intensity.
The New York Knicks are expected to make it also but it’s unclear how the rest of last season’s playoff participants will fare. The Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks, Denver Nuggets and Indiana Pacers have enough young talent to make a repeat run but there are a few teams that will be looking to improve this year.
The New Orleans Hornets may be one of those teams that could miss the playoffs this season. After losing Chris Paul to the L.A. Clippers they are in rebuilding mode. Sadly it will probably be those very Clippers that replace them in the playoffs.
So with all these things in mind it looks to be a very interesting year in the NBA. Can the Dallas Mavericks repeat as champions or will we see a new team wearing the crown this year? If everything holds true to form then it’s more than likely we will have a new champion once the dust settles. But hey, what do I know?
Roosevelt Hall is an NBA Blogger for The Sport Mentalist 2 and also writes for Shatter The Backboard. He can be contacted at RHall@shatterthebackboard.com. Follow him on Twitter @sportmentalist.
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