Sport Basketball Minor premiers Auckland Rebels | Number of teams 11 Champions Auckland Rebels | |
League National Basketball League Top scorer Jim DeGraffenreid (Waikato Warriors) | ||
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.
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. In what was another great year for the Tab Baldwin-coached Auckland side, a less than 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.