Wayback Wednesday: Roster Player in 1999
This is Wayback Wednesday, your midweek blast from the past! From retrospectives of basketball games and their interesting features, to republished articles and looking at NBA history through the lens of the virtual hardwood, Wednesdays at the NLSC are for going back in time. This week, I’m taking a look back at the swansong of the original Roster Player concept in 1999 season releases.
It’s New Year’s Eve, so I’m sure that many of us are ready to party like it’s 1999…or at least, those of us who are old enough to get that reference are, anyway! Ham-fisted pop culture references aside, while I wouldn’t say that 1999 has been on my mind all throughout 2025, it has come up a couple of times in Wayback Wednesday features in the form of NBA Live 99. Granted, the game was actually released in 1998 and only the PC version featured updated rosters via an official patch, but it remains a 1999 season release, albeit one that had to launch with final 1998 rosters due to the lockout.
This meant that NBA Live 99 still included a Roster Player on the Chicago Bulls in place of Michael Jordan, who officially retired in early 1999 as the lockout drew to a close. To that end, while the 1998 season was MJ’s last until his comeback with the Washington Wizards, his Roster Player remained active on the virtual hardwood in 1999 season releases. It marked the final use of a Roster Player, at least as the concept was originally devised. As we prepare to leave 2025 behind, let’s take a look back – way back – at an overlooked milestone in basketball gaming.
As I observed when I reflected on NBA Live 99’s default rosters way back in 2017, they aren’t the final 1998 season rosters as we may picture them. Clyde Drexler had announced his retirement after the Houston Rockets were eliminated from the 1998 Playoffs, so he doesn’t appear in the game. Similarly, trades that occurred during the postseason or Draft – including the swap of Chris Webber for Mitch Richmond – are all accounted for. In other words, they’re not the final lineups that we’d represent in a retro season mod, but rather the final on-paper rosters just before the 1998 offseason began, and the lockout went into effect. We saw a similar situation with NBA 2K12.
More pertinently, while it was assumed that Michael Jordan would be retiring with the champion Bulls set to be broken up, as I mentioned above, he didn’t make it official until January 13th, 1999. As such, like all other players who were under contract at the end of the 1998 season but set to become free agents, NBA Live 99 treated him as if he were still on the Bulls’ roster. Of course, since EA Sports still hadn’t been able to secure the rights to MJ’s likeness during the second threepeat, he was a Roster Player. As it turned out, there’d be no need for that Roster Player once the 1999 season got underway – and indeed, the PC update removed him – but it made sense at launch.
While the use of Roster Players was hardly a secret – we knew why they were there, and understood that they were making the best of the situation – naturally they weren’t usually featured in promotional materials. After all, you want to promote what is in the game as opposed to what isn’t, especially when it’s your whole slogan! That’s why it’s interesting that the back of the NBA Live 99 PC box actually shows MJ’s Roster Player walking onto the court with the rest of the Bulls’ starters during the pre-game introductions. Obviously it made sense to use the defending champions to spotlight a new presentation feature, but it also meant showing the game’s lone fictional stand-in.
It’s also clearly a screenshot from an earlier version of the game. Of course, that was actually quite common with previews on the back of video game boxes, but between the differences from the finished game and prominently featuring a workaround for licensing limitations, it’s a particularly interesting choice of screenshot. On top of showcasing a fictional stand-in, we can see that during the course of development, MJ’s Roster Player received a new face, and that his number was changed from the #89 he wore in NBA Live 98 to #99. As an aside, Dennis Rodman is also missing his tattoos, and Ron Harper doesn’t have his erroneously blue knee brace in that shot.
Whether you aimed to update NBA Live 99 for the 1999 season when the lockout was finally over, or you treated it as an enhanced version of NBA Live 98 and replayed the 1998 campaign, as usual the usefulness of the Roster Player varied depending on the platform. On console, he was a leftover that you were stuck with, regardless of whether you were replacing him with a created Michael Jordan, or sending them both into retirement. On PC, as in NBA Live 97 and NBA Live 98, he was a ready-made player to be overwritten with the correct name and bio data. This saved a little time if you were making proper 1998 season rosters, or any other project that required MJ.
Hindsight being 20/20, the developers could’ve removed the Roster Player standing in for Michael Jordan, since he wasn’t going to be playing in the 1999 season. He could still be added using Create-a-Player, with no less accuracy than his actual placeholder. Once again though, MJ didn’t officially confirm his retirement until January 1999, and there were benefits to having a Roster Player take his place in the Bulls’ lineup, even if external roster modding wasn’t feasible. Although the Roster Player was removed in the official update for PC and the default lineups overwritten with new 1999 season rosters, the art files were retained to ensure compatibility with pre-patch save files.
So, what about other 1999 season releases? Unsurprisingly, there aren’t that many of them! While EA Sports continued to assert their dominance in the space with NBA Live 99, the lockout undoubtedly dissuaded other developers and publishers from putting out a 1999 season title. After releasing NBA Action 98/NBA Fastbreak ’98, Visual Concepts took a year off before returning with the first NBA 2K. 989 Studios cancelled NBA ShootOut ’99, though that was reportedly due to quality concerns as much as the labour stoppage. NBA in the Zone ’99, NBA Jam 99, and the arcade version of NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC, are the only other 1999 season NBA titles.
Out of those three games, only NBA Jam 99 – Acclaim’s ill-fated attempt to turn the series they wrested from Midway into a sim-arcade hybrid – was released in 1998, and thus had pre-lockout rosters just like NBA Live 99. As such, it also has a stand-in for His Airness, named Roster Guard. Not only that, but his face comes dangerously close to being a recognisable likeness; not quite as blatant as NBA in the Zone 2‘s faces for MJ, Charles Barkley, and Shaquille O’Neal, but it’s unquestionably dancing the line! Conversely, NBA in the Zone ’99 came out after the 1999 season was underway and featured updated rosters, and thus had no need for a Roster Player in place of MJ.
In short, while a Roster Player wasn’t required to fill in for Michael Jordan after the 1998 campaign, two lockout-affected 1999 season titles in NBA Live 99 and NBA Jam 99 nevertheless included one. Even at the time, it seemed like a safe bet that we were seeing the final appearance of Roster Player on an NBA team. Charles Barkley – the other holdout frequently represented by a Roster Player – was now appearing in NBA Live and other titles. With Michael Jordan retiring for the second and what we then presumed to be the final time, we didn’t expect another placeholder would ever be needed, as no other players were opting out of the NBPA’s licensing agreement.
The matter did come up again when Michael Jordan came out of retirement to play for the Wizards, but concerns about the return of a Roster Player were quickly allayed. Not only would he appear in NBA Live – which had since licensed his likeness for their roster of Legends – but other 2002 and 2003 season releases were allowed to include His Airness as well. Since MJ’s final appearance as a Legend in NBA Live 2004, he’s either been absent from the virtual hardwood, or licensed to appear in NBA 2K. And so, the two 1999 season titles that were released during the lockout – NBA Live 99 and NBA Jam 99 – remain the final use of a Roster Player in MJ’s stead.
However, it wouldn’t quite be the end of Roster Players. Although we no longer have to worry about active players opting out of video game appearances, the inclusion of classic teams and retro season rosters for MyNBA Eras in NBA 2K means that having placeholders for unlicensed players isn’t a completely antiquated notion. These days, they’re given proper albeit fictional names, rather than Roster Player, Roster Guard, and so on. Indeed, the concept of MyNBA Eras rosters basically requires the stand-ins for missing players to have a name that can pass as real. Nevertheless, it’s proof that the role of a Roster Player didn’t become completely obsolete as of the 1999 season.
With that being said, Roster Players in their original form are a concept from the early days of sim basketball video games that were somewhat normal at the time, yet feel strange to look back on now. It’s weird to think that a few of the NBA’s biggest stars being absent from video games was just the way of things! It wasn’t a mystery as we understood the reasons for their absence back then as much as we do now, but since we haven’t had to replace an active star with a Roster Player since 1999, it’s become an almost unthinkable notion. In fact, while there are absences from the historical teams, nowadays we’re more likely to see recently-retired players remain in games!
I’m generally not a fan of the way so many people downplay and dismiss nostalgia as pretending everything was better than it was out of some sad longing for bygone days. Such condescending armchair psychoanalysis is speaking in broad absolutes, not to mention it conveniently overlooks that recency bias can be just as myopic. If nothing else, fond memories don’t necessarily mean that we think something is preferable or undeniably better. Sometimes, it’s just an interesting or amusing detail that’s adjacent to our fond memories of something that’s far more worthy of our esteem. I’d suggest that describes how we older gamers feel whenever we reminisce about Roster Players.
After all, no one argues that they were ideal, or should return outside of their current usage to facilitate historical content. They were simply the best possible compromise given the licensing roadblock that video game developers faced, and something that we could put to good use with modding on PC. We remember them as an interesting and in hindsight kind of funny aspect of games that we loved; not the reason that we enjoyed those games so much, or the way that things should be, given the choice. It’s a situation that we’re happy to leave in the past, but it’s still a fun core memory in its own way, as evident from the comments on social media recalling those placeholders.
Again, while 1999 season lineups had no need for a Roster Player, the decision to release NBA Live 99 and NBA Jam 99 on schedule – and in the midst of a lockout – ultimately extended the virtual hardwood career of the infamous placeholder. This probably flies under the radar because the campaign wasn’t a memorable one for video games. As noted, only a few came out that year compared to previous seasons, with NBA Live 99 PC being updated via a patch, NBA in the Zone ’99 benefitting from a later release, and NBA Jam 99 not being very good. It wouldn’t be long before they were all completely overshadowed by NBA Live 2000 and the first NBA 2K.
Still, those two 1999 season games with a Roster Player in place of Michael Jordan mark a milestone in basketball gaming. The original concept became outmoded with MJ’s second retirement, and other big changes and innovations in the genre were also looming on the horizon. Like the 1999 season itself, the lockout made those games – or at least, NBA Live 99 – a somewhat awkward yet enjoyable stepping stone to a new era. By capturing a league in limbo, both it and NBA Jam 99 featured the last vestige of a unique licensing arrangement that affected so many classic hoops titles. It wasn’t ideal and should be left in the past, but there’s no denying the odd nostalgia it inspires.
And, as we leave 2025 in the past, a huge thanks for your support throughout the year! As is customary here at the NLSC, I’ll wrap things up by sharing Lutz’s wise words of wisdom regarding this evening’s celebrations: Remember the safest order of things on New Year’s Eve: 1. Fireworks, 2. Drink, and not vice versa.
See you on the virtual hardwood in 2026!
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