additions of playoff veterans such as Mario Elie and Jerome Kersey, the Spurs looked forward to the 1998–99 season. Prior to the beginning of training camps, however, the NBA owners, led by commissioner David Stern, locked out the players in order to force a new collective bargaining agreement with the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA). The season was delayed for over three months until resolution on a new labor agreement was reached in January 1999. Playing a shortened 50-game season, the Spurs won their first two games of the season, against the Kings and the Timberwolves respectively. However, the Spurs lost their next three games to the Lakers, Timberwolves, and Cavaliers, the latter a 99–89 road loss. The Spurs finished the regular season with an NBA-best 37–13 record (.740 win percentage), the only season during Duncan's tenure with the Spurs that the team did not win at least 50 games in a season, a feat that extended through the 2016–17 season. The team was just as dominant in the playoffs, rolling through the Western Conference with a record of 11–1. In the NBA Finals, they faced the New York Knicks, who had made history by becoming the first eighth seed to ever make the NBA Finals. The Spurs won the series 4-1 and the franchise's first NBA Championship in Game 5 at the Knicks' home arena, Madison Square Garden. Duncan was named the NBA Finals MVP. The Spurs became the first former ABA team to reach and win the NBA Finals. Coming off their first NBA Championship, the Spurs were still among the best teams in the West and battling for first place in the Midwest Division during the 1999–2000 season. On March 14, the Spurs playoff spirits got a lift when Sean Elliott, who received a kidney transplant from his brother prior to the season, returned and played in the last 19 games. As the season wound down, Duncan suffered a knee injury and the Spurs finished in second place with a 53–29 record. Without Duncan, the Spurs were knocked out of the playoffs by the Phoenix Suns in four games. The long-term viability of the Spurs franchise in San Antonio was, however, achieved during the 1999–2000 season, as Bexar County voters approved increases in car rental and hotel taxes which would allow for the construction of a new arena next to the Freeman Coliseum. The Spurs finished with