Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
Winning on the road is tough in the NBA. So is beating teams with winning records. Still, it seems rather surprising that the Chicago Bulls made history the other night, becoming the first team in league history to win five straight road games during the same trip against winning teams.
While we could point out how Derrick Rose is claiming his place among the NBA's firmament, let's focus instead on just how unlikely this really is (yay math!).
Imagine a hypothetically average team (or the Charlotte Bobcats). They win 40% of their road games and 40% of their games against winning opponents. Assuming that roughly half the teams in the league have winning records, we can say that there's a (1/2)^5 chance of simply facing five winning teams on a five-game road trip. Then the odds of an average team winning all of those games is (4/25)^5. Put them together and you get 32/9,765,625. Or roughly .00033%.
And we promise: there won't be any more math.
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