NBA Lockout 2011: Why a Shortened Season Will Help Small Market Teams

In order to determine how a lockout in the 2011-12 season will effect the NBA, we need to look back to the shortened 1998-99 season.  

That year, teams participated in a 50 regular-season games.  There was no All-Star game; some teams did not even have the opportunity to face each other at all during the shortened season.       

In the 1998-99 season, with the addition of future Hall of Famer Tim Duncan, the Spurs won the Western Conference and their first championship as a franchise.  What is genuinely surprising is that the Knicks, who barely beat the Charlotte Hornets to make the playoffs, ended up winning the East before falling in five games in the Finals.

By winning and becoming the Eastern Conference champions that year, the Knicks became the only eighth seed in the history of the NBA to make it to the Finals.  

If Patrick Ewing had not been benched in the Finals due to an Achilles tendon injury the series might have been closer and more competitive.  In addition, two-time All-Star Larry Johnson was severely limited during the series with a knee injury that he suffered in the previous series against the Pacers.  The Knicks had the tools to win but unfortunately they were crippled by injuries. 

It is entirely feasible that the 1998-99 season was two untimely injuries away from seeing basketball's first eighth seed crowned as NBA champion.

As the 1998-99 season illustrated, shortening a season by 32 games gives rise to a number of statistical deviations.

If there is a lockout in 2011-12, we can look forward to a little more parity in the NBA.  Although teams like the Lakers, Celtics, Heat and Bulls will presumably lead the way, injuries and chemistry issues could easily derail a team, pushing them from a top seed to a fifth or sixth seed.

In much the same way, if teams like the Magic, Thunder, Trailblazers and Nuggets gain a little momentum early in the season they could easily find themselves sitting on a first or second seed.

With a smaller sampling of contests to draw from it really does become anyone's game.

Although a season shortened by a lockout is every NBA fan's worst nightmare, the second half of the season will produce some unpredictable and astonishing basketball.

Expect the unexpected.