New York Knicks '97-98

...Because there are a lot of reasons to think the Knicks will struggle this year. The biggest reason is a statistical anomaly called the Johnson Effect. The Johnson Effect is the tendency of teams that win more than they should have in one year to collapse the following year. The Knicks in 1997 won more than they should have according to the number of points they scored and allowed. If you check their stat page, you'll see that they won 7 more games than projected. In a study I did nearly ten years ago, I did not find a single team like this that won as much the following season.

The reason for this is that the number of points scored and allowed by a team are a measure of the ability of the team. According to this measure, the Knicks should have won only 50 games. Those points scored and allowed turned into 57 wins because the Knicks were a bit lucky. They labored to a lot of wins, rarely blowing teams out, and they won 9 games decided by three points or less. These aren't signs of a dominant team.

What this implies for the coming year is that the base of Knick talent is worth about 50 wins. Since the Knicks' only change in personnel was the addition of Chris Dudley -- a below average player -- New York is facing an uphill battle to get 57 wins again. (See LATE NOTE.)

One reason to believe that the Knicks might win 57 again is that Allan Houston, Larry Johnson, and Chris Childs all had down years... or at least that is what the New York press said. Actually, Houston's performance last year was not all that different from what he did in Detroit the previous season. In short, if you take Houston's numbers from his previous (supposed break-out) season, then New York wins two more games. You can say something similar about Johnson and Childs, whose seasons were worse than the previous year, but not out of line with the rest of their careers. Basically, you can add another two wins for each of the players if they play up to their best seasons.

OK, so that is 6 wins if all three of those players play up to their best seasons. Add that to the 50 wins that New York should have won and you get a 56 win season, not 57 as they had the previous year.

Hopefully, you know that it is somewhat unlikely that all three players will live up to their best seasons. It is also a bit unlikely that aging Patrick Ewing and Charles Oakley will continue to perform at their established levels. John Starks has not changed much since he's been in the league, but he is 32, an age at which players typically start declining. Charlie Ward hasn't shown any signs of stardom, nor has Walter McCarty.

So you tell me how the Knicks are going to be great.

LATE NOTE: The Knicks do get the better of the very recent trade with the Celtics. Pitino got another of his Kentucky alums in Walter McCarty (a key player on his Wildcat teams), but New York gets an established pro in Chris Mills. Mills is not a great player, but one that should contribute positively to New York, something that Wallace, McCarty, and Brooks would not have done.