How many possible outcomes in an NBA season? (Explained further below)

Question

This isn't a homework question but I'd still be interested to know the answer and how you get the answer. I'm a big basketball/NBA fan, I'm wondering how many possible outcomes in a season there are with A representing the home team and B being the away team. I know there are 1,230 total games in a season. I'm thinking a summation would make the most sense to use but I'm not really sure. For instance there would be 1,230 possible outcomes of A were to only win 1 game, and vice versa with B, and I think I've found out that if A or B were to win just 2 games it would be double the possible outcomes added to that total, 2,460x2. I'm not sure if it would just keep doubling or not though.

Thank you so much if you can help me out on this. Once again, not a homework thing at all, just curious.

Answer 1

There are 2^1230 possible outcomes.  To understand this, start with a simpler scenario.  Say there was a 3-game series between A and B.  Possible outcomes are AAA, AAB, ABA, ABB, BAA, BAB, BBA, BBB.  2^3 = 8.

Answer 2

Seems to me that if we assume all games are independent (i.e., no game's outcome is dependent on any other), then each game has two possible outcomes.  So, we'd have:

 

2 * 1230 = 2460 possible outcomes.

 

Unless I missed something.