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]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

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]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

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]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

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]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

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]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

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]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

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]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

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.

[Chederer]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

Are you uploading as you go? Or will you be waiting until it's complete to upload it?

[TheDominator273]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

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

I can echo this, last year I found a pretty good base roster someone had created for the 1998-99 season, but between age edits, number edits and converting contracts to the modern salary cap I never finished as it was an immense amount of work. The contracts are by far the most tedious

[ZachenFoot]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

Been working hard at getting this roster right and having a heck of a good time doing it. I have now completed 15 teams (that number even surprised me, I thought I only had 12 max), so we're more than halfway home!

But teams get much more challenging now; there are far fewer players currently filling out teams like the Cavs, Nuggets and others. I've also gotten much more efficient at creating players, so I can definitely see myself working through these at a decent rate.

The teams I have finished are:

Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls, Boston Celtics, Utah Jazz, Sacramento Kings, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, Orlando Magic, Dallas Mavericks, Indiana Pacers, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Seattle Supersonics, Portland Trail Blazers.

Question for All: I see two reasonable options for the necessary 30th team: either a team of low-rated players who were signed to teams and played a couple of games but didn't make the final cut of 15, or a realistic team of players who were either still under contract, starring in Europe or, for one reason or another, were out of the league.

Here are my thoughts for the latter team. Also taking suggestions as to the identity of the team:

PG - Bobby Hurley
SG - Lionel Simmons
SF - Ken Norman
PF - Zoran Savic
C - Sharone Wright

PG - Tyus Edney
PG - B.J. Tyler
SG - Craig Ehlo
SG - Kevin Edwards
SF/SG - Sasha Danilovic
SF - Ed O'Bannon
PF/C - Roy Tarpley
PF/C - Dino Radja
PF - Martin Muursepp
C - Stacey King

This is the kind of roster I believe could compete among the league's lesser teams, looks like a genuine roster of guys at the time, and gives guys who would've been playing regularly something to do without ruining the possibilities in the FA pool with Jordan, Clyde, etc.

Are you uploading as you go? Or will you be waiting until it's complete to upload it?

I hadn't even considered sharing it prior to completing; must be a force of habit from work

That said, yeah, I should. You guys know a lot more than I do about certain players and could help me along with attribute and tendency issues. I know a lot of these players aren't perfect yet, neither are the teams. I'd say the base rosters are going extremely well but I still need to perfect attributes, contracts, coaches, etc.

I plan to keep plugging away all day, we'll see what kind of tweaks I make. If I'm happy with it I'll share it before going to bed tonight.

[Chederer]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

Haha damn right on man. Yeah keep on truckin', you're far far ahead of where I am at. Again feel free to take anything you would like from my roster or draft class, they're up on PSN. I've updated them both today. The 98 Draft class has 35 ish guys from 81-51OVR, and all the 2k generated randoms have been lowered to 50. PSN Name is Chederer.

If there's any specific way I can help I would be glad to. Either way I will start really working out the 99 draft/future draft classes tonight.

My 0.02 on the 30th team, I'm going to make it a team of fun guys (Spud Webb and Manute Bol, Clyde Drex, among others) as the OKC Thunder because I just personally like the team and think they have a good fanbase. But I may instead use an old ABA build (Spirits of St Louis or Kentucky Colonels maybe). There's a cool Spirits of St Louis build out there on the PSN. My roommate actually made a really nice build for a Montreal team too.

Awesome work though dude, can't wait to start a playthrough with these rosters.

[ZachenFoot]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

Haha damn right on man. Yeah keep on truckin', you're far far ahead of where I am at. Again feel free to take anything you would like from my roster or draft class, they're up on PSN. I've updated them both today. The 98 Draft class has 35 ish guys from 81-51OVR, and all the 2k generated randoms have been lowered to 50. PSN Name is Chederer.

If there's any specific way I can help I would be glad to. Either way I will start really working out the 99 draft/future draft classes tonight.

My 0.02 on the 30th team, I'm going to make it a team of fun guys (Spud Webb and Manute Bol, Clyde Drex, among others) as the OKC Thunder because I just personally like the team and think they have a good fanbase. But I may instead use an old ABA build (Spirits of St Louis or Kentucky Colonels maybe). There's a cool Spirits of St Louis build out there on the PSN. My roommate actually made a really nice build for a Montreal team too.

Awesome work though dude, can't wait to start a playthrough with these rosters.

If it's no trouble with you, I may take a peek at some of your 1999 roster and see if there's any DNA you have that could aid my process along. With proper credit given upon publish, of course.

I've finished a couple more: the Grizzlies and Nets. We're getting there!

[Chederer]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

Oh for sure man, go nuts.

[Chederer]

Re: 1998-99 Roster Project (PS4)

Hey man not sure if it's yours or not but somebody appears to have uploaded another crack at a 98 roster, it's called "1998+" on PSN. Used some of that roster to help fill out mine last night. It's incomplete but there are a good amount of 98-99 players in there lurking around. I have to run to work today ugh, but I'm gonna give that a good comb through this afternoon.