From ESPN.go.com: I wonder if anybody can tell me the odds of that happening... It was our destiny to move up, because god is clearly a Rockets fan!
Not counting the chance of the "dead" combination coming up, it's (89/1000)^2, or 0.7921%, or 1 in 126. The chance of any of the 13 teams getting the first two non-dead combinations this year was 15.5624%, with the individual team's chances ranging from ranging from roughly 1 in 20 (GS, Chi) to 1 in 40,000 (Mil). If you want to take the dead combo into account, change the 1000 to 1001 above. The probability of the Houston double would decrease to 0.7905%. The other numbers would fall by similarly insignificant amounts. (The probability of double-dead is 1 in 1,002,001.) Maybe I'll stick around after Langhi leaves after all!
Er... The 'dead combination', I believe, refers to the fact that after you draw a number, that number becomes invalid and can't be drawn again. The pool of total options, therefrore, reduces by one. I believe that he's also saying that there's only a 15.5624% chance that any team would have it's number picked for both the first and second pick, assuming that you don't adjust for the first ball picked becomming invalid. Finally, if I understand correctly, he says that there's only a .7921% percent chance that this would happen to specifically the Rockets, or a .7905% chance if you adjust for the first ball having been picked. In otherwords, the chances are that what happened should occur about once every 125 years. That's pretty cool. (Of course, I could have misunderstood. I was never that great at mathmatics.) Even though there's no Tim Duncan type avalable, this really gives me the feeling that the Rockets are destined to be good again real soon. More than just the fact that they've gotten a chance to draft a good player, the way that things have happened to them can only portend good things in the future, as interpreted by my supersticious mind.
