The Magical Balls...

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The Magical Balls...

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that's what she said

Balls with numbers 1 through 14 are in a hopper. Just 14 balls. Every way 4 balls can be drawn are listed. Order doesn't matter... 1-2-3-4 is the same as 1-2-4-3 and many others.

The list is divied up with higher chances corresponding to longer lists.

That combination was on our list, or some otherly ordered version of it.

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I know they base it off of combinations, but I just dont get it.

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This may hurt your head more than help you understand but:

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To determine the winner, fourteen ping pong balls numbered 1–14 are placed in a standard lottery machine and four balls are randomly selected from the lot. Just as in most traditional lotteries, the order in which the numbers are drawn is not important. That is, 1-2-3-4 is considered to be the same as 4-3-2-1. So although there is a total of 24 (4!) orders in which the balls numbered 1-2-3-4 can be picked, they are all treated as the same outcome. In doing this, the permutation of 4 balls from 14 becomes the combination of 4 balls from 14. That is, the total of 24,024 (14! / 10!, or 14x13x12x11) possible permutations is reduced by a factor of 24, to 1,001 combinations (or 14! / (10! x 4!)). Of these, 1 outcome is disregarded and 1,000 outcomes are distributed among the 14 non-playoff NBA teams. The combination 11-12-13-14 (in any order that those numbers are drawn) is not assigned and it is ignored if drawn; this has never occurred in practice.

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LINK

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This may hurt your head more than help you understand but

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Well....u were right....

What the hell is that gif from?

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The combinations starting with 6 were split between us and Cleveland. That last number coming up 7 gave it to us, as it being a 3 would have given it to the Cavs for the second year in a row.

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I get it up til now. But what were the odds of it being a "7" versus it being a "3"? And what if it was (for example) an "8" that came out instead?

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The combinations starting with 6 were split between us and Cleveland. That last number coming up 7 gave it to us, as it being a 3 would have given it to the Cavs for the second year in a row.

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I get it up til now. But what were the odds of it being a "7" versus it being a "3"? And what if it was (for example) an "8" that came out instead?

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His statement is not entirely true, although on the right path....

Order doesn't matter so the 3 that helped the Cavs would have been like this:

3-4-6-9

as opposed to:

4-6-7-9

for the Hornets


but to answer your question (I think) MT, there was a 1/14 chance of it being any number 1-14, so in actuality, most teams could have won up until the last ball.

If it was a 1, Charlotte would have gotten it

Monsieur FN has this basically right. There were 11 left in the hopper before the final one was drawn. 7 may have been the only one that could have worked or one of many. All we know is dearest Dell's diary of the event. Did he have a cheatsheet? All the possibilities memorized? Chevy Chase "Be(e) the ball" lessons? Who knows?

I don't trust the narrator here to be in full possession of all the facts and to have the capacity to distill such a monstrosity into a soundbite. It took me hours to bang out my analyses and the cose uses to run it. I think Dell had other things on his brain the past month.

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There were 11 left in the hopper before the final one was drawn.

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I'm pissed at myself for not considering the 3 balls already picked

yes