A Six Sigma Analysis of the Wolves, INTRO

Hello fellow CH'ers.  How's everyone enjoying the season so far?  I know we only have four wins.  And I know we've had some ugly losses.  But for the first time in a long time, I have a strangely optimistic feeling.  Not exactly sure why I feel that way.  Maybe it's just common when you have a lot of roster turnover, and the garbage you don't know seems better than the garbage you had.  Maybe it's my "lemonade out of lemons" nature.  Or maybe it's the sense that, for all of the losing so far, it seems like we might finally have the makings of an identity on this team.

It certainly is early in the season, and we shouldn't draw any permanent conclusions, but I can't even remember a time when I thought about this before.  Beasley is turning into the cold-blooded, assassin, Alpha Dog we desperately needed.  Love is establishing his niche as a fantastically good garbage guy (more on this later...I think this might be the rarest commodity in the NBA...a guy that can seriously impact a game without having any offense run through him).  Darko has given us a legitimate low post defensive presence, and appears to be able to hit the broad side of a fish lately.  Wes is an extremely promising, silky smooth player whose man D has been a bit of a revelation.  We finally have some decent role players...the list goes on.

I feel like we are already a far more entertaining property then we have been for quite a while.  Yes, we've had some bad (Opening night SACTO  minutes fiasco, Charlotte pants pooping), some good (Beasley's emergence, Love's 31/31), and some predictably ugly (Memphis, Miami, Orlando road trip anybody???) so far this year.  But I also think we have finally...FINALLY...established some semblance of a philosophy and pecking order.  I've been following our beloved Wolfies for the better part of two decades now., and this collection of players is quite unique.

We've had our good stretches in the past  - aka the Flip Saunders era.  Did we go one and done pretty much all the time?  Of course we did.  But did we ever really have something to hang our hat on?  We were pretty much "The Team with Kevin Garnett" and that was it.  We weren't KNOWN for anything...maybe except as a soft collection of jump-shooters...and Kevin Garnett.  Even with Sam and Spree, I never really felt we were legit title contenders,  Who ever would have thought those were the "Salad Days" as we look back and reflect?

So what does this current team mean to us...the fans?  Me?  I'm an optimist...and a  skeptic...oh, and also kind of a sarcastic a-hole.  But at my core, I'm a critical-thinker.  Whether it's a trip to the grocery store, or a major cross-functional initiative at work, I constantly look for details.  And I always ask myself one question: how could this be better?.  It's why I do what I do.  For the last decade or so, I've been a Six Sigma Black Belt that has worked to identify areas of deficiency, share the opportunities for improvement, and lead efforts to implement said improvement.  If that last sentence sounds like the essence of corporate douchiness...well, yeah, it is...but it's what I do.

So the thought that has been kicking around in my brain for a while now is this: What would the result be if we ever took the Six Sigma approach to the Minnesota Timberwolves?  A hardcore process and root cause analysis that clearly identifies what we do, what is good, what is bad, and then makes suggestions about what we can do better?  I honestly have no idea where this idea might go.  It could be nothing more than a vanity project on my part, and it leads to nothing.  Conversely, it could unearth some serious flaws in the way our favorite NBA team does business, or confirm that it's on the right track.  It may provide us with some qualitative and quantitative evidence of how we should go forward.  Like any project I have ever worked on, the benefit is a complete unknown at this point.  But I've also learned over the years that you'll never get better unless you ask questions about yourself first.

So the reason I'm posting this "statement of intent" rather than diving right in is this.  No project ever succeeds without Subject Matter Experts that know what the hell they're talking about.  I'm a Wolves fan, and I certainly have my opinions, but one guy is a pretty poor sample size, statistically speaking.  Out of all the on-line communities I am involved with, Canis Hoopus is consistently the most intelligent, most diverse, and best looking.  OK...that last statement was meant solely to win you over and get you involved, but the rest is true.  Regardless of your looks, I want your feedback.  We have some incredible minds on this site...both from a statistical and a "scouting" perspective.  Let's tap into that, use our collective intelligence, and put our squad into a proper perspective within the context of the NBA.

If I'm the only one that finds this to be an interesting pursuit, then say so.  If this has already been done, shout it down in the comments.  But I legitimately think there are interesting things to uncover by taking this approach.  I've never managed a project at work where I didn't find at least ONE THING that could have been done better.  If David Kahn now spends his non-media time reading CH, maybe we'll even make a difference.  Who knows?  If you're out, vote NO.  However, if you're in, vote YES, and be prepared to be challenged.  Here is what awaits us if we go forward (at a high level), and how I will probably structure the posts:

1.  Defining what we want to achieve

2.  Measuring our current capacity

3.  Analyzing how we can improve

4.  How to implement improvements

5.  How to ensure our improvements last

I want to reiterate that this entire effort means nothing if you guys aren't interested in it.  The wisdom of CH is the key to the success of the project.  But I definitely believe that going through this exercise could be very enlightening.  That's why I've put up a poll to decide if I should take this forward.  If you vote YES, our next step is to develop a Project Charter, where we define exactly what it is we're going to look at and why we're going to look at it.  I think it will be a fun ride...plus it will look like I'm actually doing work at work., when I'm not actually doing any work.

Any other BB's, Project Managers, Business Process Analysts out there...keep me honest.  And if you have any ideas about how to proceed, don't hesitate to chime in.  Even though I've done this for a while, I recognize that there are many things I don't know, and welcome your input.  Let's come up with some tangible ways to fix our Wolves everyone, and even if it results in nothing...well, at least we'll be able to say "I told you so."