Originally posted by plawrence: But if I said "what are the chances of two people picking a team with Duncan or Stoudamire, Marbury or Nash, Nowitzki or Marion, Finley, Ginobili, or McGrady and any one of four centers and four coaches, the chances would be much less.
So to answer Beth's question, it's really more like 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 4, or 384-1 divided by the group size of 8, or about 1/48.
But because some of the above combos are impossible because of the cap (No, I am [b]not going to run through all 384 to find out how many there are), lets call it about 1 chance in 24.
That actually seems about right to me.
( (edited 7:31 am) ) [/b]
Plaw, I think you once again run into the trouble of counting the eight person. The probability of two people picking the same team is now 1 in 384, given our limitations. Understood. But in a group of 8, there's again only 7 possible combinations with one specific person. Therefore, there is a 7 in 384 chance that the other 7 matches with the specific one. Therefore, the probability is actually a little bit smaller than 1 in 48.
Of course, like you said, not all 384 combinations is possible. So in the end, the probability will be greater than 7 in 384. 1 in 24 is probably a good estimate because I bet over half of the 384 combinations is not possible, given salary cap restrictions. Just a hunch though.
