1997 New Zealand NBL season

1997 New Zealand NBL season
League National Basketball League
Sport Basketball
Number of teams 11
Top seed Auckland Rebels
Finals champions Auckland Rebels
  Runners-up Nelson Giants

The 1997 New Zealand National Basketball League season was the 16th running of the competition. The early 1990s held dwindling fortunes New Zealand basketball, with TV coverage reduced, sponsorships dwindled and crowd numbers on the decline. At the end of the 1996 season, both the Wellington Saints and the Hutt Valley Lakers were struggling to survive. They amalgamated for the 1997 season and succeeded in signing a naming rights sponsorship deal with TransAlta.[1]

The Auckland Rebels won the championship in 1997 to claim their fifth league title, recording the first and so far only three-peat in the league's history.[2] In what was another great season for the Auckland side, a less memorable moment occurred when the Canterbury Rams ruined Auckland's chance of a perfect season. Their only loss in 24 regular season games came at Cowles Stadium when American import Adrian Boyd was called for a contentious travelling call while going for an uncontested lay-up in the game's final seconds.[3]

Final standings

# Team
Auckland Rebels
Nelson Giants
3 Hawke's Bay Hawks
4 Otago Nuggets
5 North Harbour Vikings
6 Wellington Saints
7 Canterbury Rams
8 Northland Suns
9 Waikato Warriors
10 Palmerston North Jets
11 Taranaki Bears

Season awards

References

  1. "Locations - Exodus Saints". Wotzon.com. Archived from the original on 9 February 2013.
  2. 1 2 "2005 League Handbook" (PDF). Basketball.org.nz. p. 32–36. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 24, 2006. Retrieved 20 September 2015.
  3. Egan, Brendon (9 May 2014). "Baldwin predicts Rams ready for a winning spurt". Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  4. McNae, Pete (24 June 2010). "Phill Jones available for Tall Blacks". Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 13 September 2015.
  5. Warner, Neil K. (26 July 2008). "DeGraffenreid up for the challenge of starting hoops program". HeraldExtra.com. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
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