Minnesota Timberwolves '97-98

The T'Wolves have other concerns besides the potential for Jordan not to retire. Principally, they must be concerned about whether they will get what they paid for. Historically, there have been nonproducers getting paid as much as the best players in the league. Jon Koncak was an obvious one and the symbol of this heresy, but now we have Juwan Howard.

From his perch as GM of the T'Wolves, Kevin McHale must have some high expectations for the kid this year. For example:

1. Garnett must be an all-star this year. The publicity over his contract may get him enough votes. If it doesn't, Nike will see to it that he gets in.
2. 20-10, twenty points per game and ten rebounds per game. It's a modest standard for a top big man.
3. 50 wins. Minnesota improved by 14 wins to a 40-42 record last year. Another tens wins should be easy, right?

Goal number one is fairly likely because the league wants him to be an all-star. The league needs its youngest and highest paid players to be all-stars or it looks bad. Bet on this happening.

Goal number two isn't going to happen. Garnett is a long way from 10 rebounds per game. He is too skinny and he only averaged eight per game last year. Besides, teammates Tom Gugliotta and Ervin Johnson will take boards away from him.

Garnett probably won't get 20 ppg either. Garnett has improved a lot since he's arrived in the league and (I know I harp on this a lot) he did improve over his rookie year unlike so many other rookies, so there is reason to believe he will continue to develop. But his development flattened out a little last year relative to the second half of his rookie year. That, in addition to Gugliotta insistence on getting his points, leads me to believe that Garnett won't get 20 ppg.

Goal number three is the interesting one, one that inspired The Power of Parity. The improvement of the Wolves last year was rather impressive, but does it mean that they are on a strong upward trend? The conclusion of that article was No. I broadened the study a little bit to look at teams with records between 24 and 28 wins one season and follow them over two years. Of the 57 teams in this win range, as the Wolves were in '95-96, six reached 50 wins two years later. Most of them did it as a consequence of new talent. That talent, which included Kevin Johnson, Grant Hill, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar, a healthy Patrick Ewing, and Mark Jackson, all had better individual numbers than either Kevin Garnett or Stephon Marbury has had.

There is also a heuristic rule called the Plexiglass Principle stating that a team which improves by a large amount one year is more likely than not going to fall back the next year. For teams that improved by 14 games in one year, this principle is relatively strong, indicating that about 60-65% of teams do suffer a letdown.

Finally, as a corollary to the plot in The Power of Parity, I looked at the chance that any team with a certain record will improve. For example, the chances of a team with a very bad record improving are intuitively rather high. They can't get much worse and there is no place to go but up. Below is a chart that shows what to expect from teams with different records. Teams that win 30% of their games (about 25 wins), for example, have a 75% chance of improving the following season.

This implies that the Wolves have a slightly better than 50% chance of improving. But put this together with the 60-65% chance of them falling prey to the Plexiglass Principle, and improvement looks unlikely.

For 50 wins, the Wolves would really be bucking the odds. Given what I have seen of the talent on the team, I would be very surprised if they pull it off.