The flagship Fleer brand was renamed Fleer Tradition for 1998-99, and was scheduled to be a 2-series set, as was common up to this time. However, with the NBA's first lockout, many card sets were affected, and Fleer never released a series 2. This meant that the flagship Fleer brand would not contain any rookie cards for the first time in it's history.

Many sets went to a single series release following the first lockout, changing NBA basketball cards for all the time since.