I like Kevin Garnett. I want him to win an NBA championship. Ideally, he’ll win with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Realistically, though, that might not be a possibility.

I was talking to editor Mathias Baden the other day about how great it would be to see the Timberwolves somehow luck their way into the first pick of this year’s NBA draft. Right now, they’d have to lose a lot more games to have even chances with bottom-of-the-barrel teams like Boston and Memphis, but I think we can all agree that if there is one thing this team can do, it’s lose.

With that in mind, I visited a nifty little feature on ESPN’s Web site, http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/lottery2007/mockdraft [1]. The site will randomly generate a possible drat lottery using the chances that each team has to claim the top spot. Then the site will use that draft order and project who will be taken (with most teams selecting Ohio State center Greg Oden or Texas forward Kevin Durant).

I decided to put the lottery to the test and see how well the Wolves could fare in the draft. The answer? Not well.

I played the lottery 100 times, and not once did the Wolves get the top spot or Greg Oden (the ideal candidate for the Wolves team, in my opinion). In my 100 tests, the Wolves won the second pick and Kevin Durant three times. Twice they won the third pick and Joakim Noah out of Florida. But three out of 100 is not good.