The basketball back then certainly wasn’t the most beautiful, but the mere mention of the NBA’s lockout-shortened 1999 season invokes some distinct imagery.
It was the last time, of course, that the New York Knicks reached the NBA Finals. It was likewise the first time that Tim Duncan, Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs were crowned champions, establishing the platform for four more titles before Duncan retired.
It also became known, regrettably, as the league’s Asterisk Season, christened so not by a know-it-all scribe but by a rather successful coach named Phil Jackson. In possession of merely six of his eventual 11 championship rings at the time, Jackson insisted that the Spurs’ achievement needed one of these affixed — (*) — because the regular season spanned only 50 games.