1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

[ZachenFoot]

ROSTER NAME: 1998-99 Full Rosters + FA
PSN: ZachenFoot
STATUS: In the Works

Hey gang.

So I just bought 2K19 yesterday and am absolutely thrilled with the expansions of create-a-player and the ability to customize vintage rosters. I've spent the last couple of years not only playing "dynasties" with the wonderful rosters of MJWizards, but toying around with them myself and trying to find new, unique rosters to build with his wonderful bases. I hardly created my own because of how bad the CAP system was.

However, that has been fixed, and I'm on vacation this week so I'm going to dive into making my first custom roster for y'all: the 1998-99 season.

It's such an odd, quirky year because of the lockout. Not only is it the first post-Jordan season (for awhile, at least), but you had the weird Pippen-Barkley pairing in Houston, pre-Phil Lakers, all that. It was a weird period after the Bulls' dominance and prior to the Lakers' dominance.

My goal is to create 14- to 15-man rosters of all 29 teams, and my intention is to use the 30th team spot (for MyLeague purposes) as a free agents team of players rated 69 or under. I also have intentions of building a relatively deep free agent pool; lots of guys were signed but playing overseas, and I'll add guys like Jordan, Petrovic and maybe even FIBA guys, you can do with them what you wish.

I ask for your patience, as this is my first ever roster build and I want to get it right, not just for you all but selfishly, for myself as well; this was a roster I very badly wanted to build last year but never got around to it. I don't know how long it'll take me, and any tips you all have will be of great value to me!

I will provide updates in this thread. As of now, I'm literally just building the roster spreadsheet and plan to start editing today.

UPDATE 7:02 pm, Sept. 25
Roster Beta V1: POSTED

The original 29 teams are about 93% complete barring a few filler guys (and some extra work on the Clippers and Cavaliers). With his blessing I dove into some of Chederer's creations, which were excellent. I've also made significant headway on getting all of the accessories down! I'd say I've completed about eight teams there. Except shoes; ya'll are on your own there.

Attributes aren't perfect, nor are appearances, but the first (and biggest) thing I was worried about was creating everyone to a good likeness and getting them in there to tinker with later, and that part is almost done.

For the teams, I went with a convention similar to MJWizards and his rosters, mainly to cut corners on MyLeague aesthetics and avoid retired number conflicts.

Atlantic Division
'00-'01 Philadelphia 76ers
'99-'00 Toronto Raptors
'01-'02 New Jersey Nets
All-Time Celtics
'98-'99 New York Knicks

Central Division
'97-'98 Chicago Bulls
All-Time Milwaukee Bucks
All-Time Cleveland Cavaliers
All-Time Indiana Pacers
All-Time Detroit Pistons

Southeast Division
'96-'97 Miami Heat
All-Time Atlanta Hawks
All-Time Charlotte Hornets
'94-'95 Orlando Magic
All-Time Washington Wizards

Pacific Division
All-Time Golden State Warriors
'01-'02 Sacramento Kings
'97-'98 Los Angeles Lakers
All-Time Los Angeles Clippers
All-Time Phoenix Suns

Southwest Division
'02-'03 Dallas Mavericks
All-Time Houston Rockets
Current New Orleans Pelicans
'97-'98 San Antonio Spurs
All-Time Memphis Grizzlies

Northwest Division
'95-'96 Seattle Supersonics
'97-'98 Utah Jazz
'93-'94 Denver Nuggets
'03-'04 Minnesota Timberwolves
'99-'00 Portland Trail Blazers

[Jaiveer]

Quote: Originally Posted by ZachenFoot

Hey gang. So I just bought 2K19 yesterday and am absolutely thrilled with the expansions of create-a-player and the ability to customize vintage rosters. I've spent the last couple of years not only playing "dynasties" with the wonderful rosters of MJWizards, but toying around with them myself and trying to find new, unique rosters to build with his wonderful bases. I hardly created my own because of how bad the CAP system was. However, that has been fixed, and I'm on vacation this week so I'm going to dive into making my first custom roster for y'all: the 1998-99 season. It's such an odd, quirky year because of the lockout. Not only is it the first post-Jordan season (for awhile, at least), but you had the weird Pippen-Barkley pairing in Houston, pre-Phil Lakers, all that. It was a weird period after the Bulls' dominance and prior to the Lakers' dominance. My goal is to create 14- to 15-man rosters of all 29 teams, and my intention is to use the 30th team spot (for MyLeague purposes) as a free agents team of players rated 69 or under. I also have intentions of building a relatively deep free agent pool; lots of guys were signed but playing overseas, and I'll add guys like Jordan, Petrovic and maybe even FIBA guys, you can do with them what you wish. I ask for your patience, as this is my first ever roster build and I want to get it right, not just for you all but selfishly, for myself as well; this was a roster I very badly wanted to build last year but never got around to it. I don't know how long it'll take me, and any tips you all have will be of great value to me! I will provide updates in this thread. As of now, I'm literally just building the roster spreadsheet and plan to start editing today.

Will MJ be in FA?

[ZachenFoot]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jaiveer

Will MJ be in FA?

Yes, he will.

My goal is to put as many players who were active from like, 1996 onward in there somehow, be it free agency or what have you. If you have it, then you can decide whether or not you want MJ active in 1998-99 or not, but I want you guys to at least have the option.

[Jaiveer]

Quote: Originally Posted by ZachenFoot

Yes, he will. My goal is to put as many players who were active from like, 1996 onward in there somehow, be it free agency or what have you. If you have it, then you can decide whether or not you want MJ active in 1998-99 or not, but I want you guys to at least have the option.

that sounds great man will you have contracts as well?

[ZachenFoot]

Quote: Originally Posted by Jaiveer

that sounds great man will you have contracts as well?

I realize I didn't specify but that's definitely the plan.

In fact, is there a resource you guys use where I can find numbers easily? I'm relying heavily on Basketball Reference, but unfortunately their breakdown of contracts leaves much to be desired (unless I'm totally missing a better way of viewing them).

[MaddenKing94]

Quote: Originally Posted by ZachenFoot

I realize I didn't specify but that's definitely the plan. In fact, is there a resource you guys use where I can find numbers easily? I'm relying heavily on Basketball Reference, but unfortunately their breakdown of contracts leaves much to be desired (unless I'm totally missing a better way of viewing them).

It gets harder the further you go back making 90s rosters extremely difficult to get truly accurate. I'm working on a 06-07 roster and the method I use is a lot of cross referencing. Before the game out, I made a spreadsheet with the players salary from that year. You can find it through basketball reference or google search a players name followed by "salary hoopshype" for example, "Patrick Ewing salary hoopshype" and it details the players salary for that year. Again tho, going into the 90s is difficult because this information wasn't as out there much. Next look at salary per year and you can get an idea of the length of a contract. If I see player A make 2 mil a year for 3 years, followed by 15mil for 4 consecutive years followed by 8 mil for 2 consecutive years, those are likely the lengths of contracts. Cross reference with wikipedia to see what was going on as well, if there were player or team options. You may need to dabble in google archive if you really wanna perfect this. Lastly, you need to convert it to modern numbers because of inflation and the salary cap much higher now then previously. You can use this formula:

X = 1998 player salary
Y = 1998 Salary Cap
Z = modern salary cap (101,869,000)

X/Y = A

A*Z = 1998 salary converted to modern.

Classic roster are awesome just know there is A LOT of time behind making them. More than a weeks worth of time

[Chederer]

Hey man, this is awesome. I started doing this same roster myself and like the previous post says I don't think I realized just how much work it's going to be to do it correctly.



Basically what I've done so far is build the entire 1998 Draft Class (well not entire, but the whole first round and notable Rd 2 / undrafted guys) and put them on their correct teams, and also I've gone through the game and put people on the team they played on at the start of the 98-99 season, where applicable. Tried to edit ages as well, but that's incomplete and spotty.



There's a pesky 30th team too, so I made a team of recently retired FAs and then populated the FA list with the same kind of guy/also Mahmoud Abdul Rauf. I did not put Jordan in there because I personally do not want him aha





Anyway I've uploaded it under the title "98-99 SportsfapRoster", my ID is Chederer. Feel free to search it up and take anything you want from there man. It's a start at least.

[ZachenFoot]

This Player DNA tool is an absolute godsend.

While it will never totally perfect all the nuances of a created player, it makes the attributes process so much easier and makes filling out teams and building the base a true joy. I'm having so much fun.

I've completed three rosters thus far: the Bulls, Magic and Supersonics, and have created 20+ players maxing out the respective rosters to 15. I'm hoping to keep trucking along on these today and into the weekend and we'll see how far I can get. Once I'm done I'll work on contracts, staff and coaching.