2011 NBA Lockout: 8 Ways Lockout Differs from 1999 for Kobe Bryant & League

The 2011 NBA lockout may seem like familiar territory, but a lot has changed for Kobe Bryant and the rest of the league since 1999's work stoppage.

Last time around, the NBA lost five-and-a-half months, the entire offseason, 32 games and countless fans during their Collective Bargaining Agreement showdown.

Whereas ownership seems to have approached this lockout saying, "The players couldn't afford it in 1999, and they can't afford it now," one has to wonder whether the landscape has vastly changed for the league and its players this time around. 

There are both reasons for potential optimism as well as factors that could make this dispute longer, more acrimonious and more damaging than ever.

Era's End vs. Middle

The 1999 NBA lockout somehow felt like a fitting postscript to one of its best eras.

The NBA's greatest player ever (Michael Jordan) had just retired, one of its all-time best teams (the Chicago Bulls) had just broken up, many of the Dream Team-era stars were beginning their career epilogues and an especially strong draft seemed to portend a league-wide changing of the guard.

While currently budding talents like Blake Griffin and John Wall have certainly upped the league's already sky-high excitement level, they are clearly entering an already well-established NBA era.

"Young" stars like Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose have long since assimilated with current headliners like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Dwight Howard, though they have already entered their career primes. 

Even as older icons like Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett begin to ride off into the sunset, this NBA lockout is threatening to erase a chapter in a yet to be completed story.

Repeating History vs. Lessons Learned

The 1999 season is widely regarded as one of the NBA's all-time worst.

Forty percent of the games were never played.  Those that did occur featured out of shape returning players (famously low-lighted by Shawn Kemp), an especially gutted Eastern Conference and a less than enthralling NBA Champion.

It's been generally accepted that, not only were the players NOT ready for the 1999 lockout, but they were also not ready when it was time to come back.

The current work stoppage has been on the immediate horizon for nearly two full seasons now.  NBA players have routinely talked about its seeming inevitability, just as the NBA Players' Association has tried to prepare its members for the eventuality.

It's widely perceived that the NBA's players have not only been making their contingency plans for awhile now but are better prepared for the lockout and beyond.

Fan Perception Has Changed

NBA Players didn't exactly plead their case too well during the 1999 lockout. 

They came off as spoiled, out of touch and generally ungrateful. We NBA fans somehow like to vainly feel entitled to such thankfulness, as if we are the players' true "bosses."  This flawed perception is a different topic for a different time.

Surprisingly, it seemed as if fans sided more closely with the even richer NBA owners who were refusing to sign the players' checks.

Strangely enough, hindsight seems to have proven that the players actually got the better part of the deal during the past 12 seasons of the now-expired CBA.

Yet, while many people still view professional athletes as overpaid glitterati, Great Recession-era stigma against CEO's and the ultra-wealthy has seemingly left consensus on the side of the employees, rather than the NBA owners.

Today, the blame seems to be attached more readily onto those that have been signing the checks, rather than those who were cashing them.

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Owners

One can’t overlook how it wasn’t too long ago that multi-millionaires bought sports franchises simply as a “Look at me” or “I love sports” hobby. 

However, with personal bottom lines under such heavy attack during these last years of major economic downturn, franchise ownership has suddenly become part of one’s financial portfolio.  Like everything else, these ventures are suddenly expected to not only break even but to turn a handsome profit as well.

Yes, one can reasonably ask, "Since when is it a 'crisis' that your 'hobby' isn’t making tens of millions of dollars per year?"

That question certainly wasn't answerable in 1999, and the players gained 57 percent of the revenue stream because of it.

However, with losses disputably reaching hundreds of millions of dollars, one can understand why owners are suddenly so desperate where they might not have been a decade ago.  Not only have their U.S. businesses taken huge hits recently, but now their "hobby investments" are hemorrhaging money too.

The NBA has been embarrassingly unable to even find buyers for the league-owned New Orleans Hornets. The Sacramento Kings, Milwaukee Bucks and other small market franchises are also reportedly unsellable. 

It's no wonder that owners are clawing for their revenue back. They couldn't get out of this game right now even if they wanted to.

Internationally Marketing a Player-Driven League

Today's NBA stars have greater notoriety and access to secondary revenue streams than those in 1999. Basketball exploits may have built a current player's personal brand, but it's their league's investment that created the market.

Following up on the Dream Team's iconic successes of the 1990s, the NBA spent the 2000s heavily marketing its product overseas.

Where NBA stars were just beginning to achieve true international exposure back in 1999, even mid-level players are household names today in the European and Asian markets especially.

The NBA has certainly earned a lot of cash through their over-seas ventures, yet it's the individual players who may have benefited the most. 

It's understandable that league-leaders like Kobe Bryant would generate heavy international interest.  However, when even tarnished legacies like Stephon Marbury can have a successful marketing run, you know the dollars are there.

Overseas Options Equals Player Leverage

Professional basketball had existed overseas for quite some time already by 1999.  However, few if any leagues had reached the lucrative levels that they've recently achieved.

NBA players, with their mortgages, loans and lifestyles to maintain, largely couldn't afford to go nearly half a year without pay last time around.

Ownership has clearly kept that lesson in mind going into this showdown.

However, 2011 has already shown that players have many more options to keep their games fresh and their cash flow intact, albeit still at fractionalized levels. 

With league luminaries like Kobe Bryant and Deron Williams not only considering playing overseas, but conditionally signing with foreign teams, respectively, the NBA's on-court workforce can more easily afford to dig in their heels and wait.

David Stern Then vs. Now

This fabulous retrospective recaps the long-term fallout of the 1999 lockout.  More entertainingly however, it also recalls David Stern's long-famous "Lockout beard."

While Stern has been both roundly criticized for league controversies and praised for its successes, one can't underestimate the impact he's had on the league during his 27 years at the helm.

It's always been obvious that David Stern works hard for the owners he represents, but it's also never been questioned that Stern loves the NBA product and game itself.

Say what you want about him, but NBA players, owners and fans have benefited from having such a passionate commissioner working for his league.

However, whereas 1999 saw David Stern at the height of his power and having recently completed the final round of NBA expansion, 2011 features an individual near the end of his career and with mounting criticism.

Many have questioned Stern's somewhat draconian hold on the league in recent years, while others have begun to openly wonder whether his creativity and energy have become too stale. 

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"Look, David Stern will always be my favorite commissioner ever, but his lack of resourcefulness during these past few years has been somewhat appalling. He's starting to resemble Larry O'Brien, who famously blessed the inspired concept of All-Star Weekend by gruffly demanding that it couldn't cost even a nickel … and by the way, that wasn't a compliment.

The league can't fix its small-picture issues unless it's addressing the big-picture ones, too. Can Stern even see that anymore? If he's really banking on revenue sharing as his long-term solution, that scares me more than anything." - Bill Simmons

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The Competition Is Also Locked Out

One can't overlook how the 1999 NBA lockout helped permanently solidify NFL popularity dominance.

Many do view Major League Baseball's 1994-1995 strike as the actual turning point (the NHL also lost nearly a full season that year too!)  However, that lost baseball season of 1995 only partially overlapped with the first half of the NFL campaign.

On the flip side, football was available throughout nearly the entire NBA lockout in 1999, and people didn't wait around.  Pro basketball had just completed one of its most popular eras ever by the end of the 1990s, but it didn't matter.  Fans migrated. 

Some haven't looked back.

Today, pro football is clearly America's most popular sport, and the NBA is already playing from behind. They must be awfully thankful that their front-running competitor isn't in position to steal away fans just yet.

While some will certainly turn to Major League Baseball or College Football, the NBA probably isn't too worried about that.  Respectively, an autumn's season end and a much more fragmented audience likely don't pose a long-term threat.

However, if and when NFL football does resume, pro basketball will have to move quickly in order to not only avoid a historical repeat but a potentially even bigger loss of fan market-share than before.