Tuesday, January 4th, 2011 at 2:56 pm  |  8 responses

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Jackpot!

Kevin Owens weighs the odds of making it big in basketball.

by Kevin Owens / @Waiting4Godunk

This morning when I went to get my morning coffee, I was greeted by a line stretching out the door. Unsure if the employees of my local convenience store were involved in some sort of promotional giveaway, I decided to see what the excitement was all about.

It was then that I noticed my 80-year-old neighbor stuffing a stack of Mega Million lottery tickets into her purse. If you are one of the lucky or maybe unlucky folks who live in the 41 states currently involved in the Mega Million lottery, you can understand what the fuss is all about. The jackpot is currently up to $330 million.

This made me think that buying a ticket might be a viable option, especially since I have spent another holiday season sitting at home, while many of my professional basketball colleagues earn their living. Since all of them are overseas, I figured I am that more likely to win.

Then I saw the odds…176 million to 1. Those are my chances at winning this thing. How bad are those odds? Well let’s take a look.

The odds of becoming a professional athlete: 24,450 to 1.

The odds that my agent has forgotten my name: 2 to 1.

The odds of this professional athlete becoming a former professional athlete real soon: 3 to 2.

The odds that I make an NBA roster: 820,000 to 1.

The odds that I win an NBA Championship: 1.5 million to 1.

The odds of the Miami Heat winning the NBA Championship this year: 1.6 to 1.

The odds of the L.A. Lakers winning the NBA Championship this year: 2.8 to 1.

The odds of my hometown Philadelphia 76ers winning it all this year: 195 to 1

The odds that I will write a New York Times Best Seller: 220 to 1. (Waiting For Godunk… coming soon to a book store near you.)

The odds of winning an Academy Award: 11,500 to 1. (Waiting For Godunk the Movie… coming soon to a theater near you.)

The odds of dying in a shark attack: 1.8 million to 1

Chance of dying from venomous animal: 422,045 to 1

Number of animal species, located in Australia, on the Top-10 Most Dangerous Animals in the World list: 5

The odds that the Cairns Taipans, my former team, win the Australian NBL Championship this year: 9 to 1

Odds that Kevin Durant wins the NBA MVP this season: 5 to 2.

The odds of LeBron James winning the NBA MVP: 9 to 2.

The odds of Kevin Owens winning the NBA MVP: 100 million to 1

The odds of becoming the President of the United States: 10 million to 1.

The odds of a former professional athlete becoming President of the United States: 5,420 to 1.

The odds of dying from an injury this year: 1,700 to 1.

Chance of becoming a saint after said injury: 20,000,000 to 1.

Of all the ridiculous odds I looked up, the only one that had worse odds than the Lottery was this:

Odds of a meteor falling on to your house: 182,138,880,000,000 to 1.

This means that I have a much better chance of earning the jackpot — playing professional basketball — than if I were to purchase a ticket. I also would have died several times, been named President of the United States after a successful writing and film career, been named the NBA MVP, and been canonized as a saint.

I think my life will be much more enriched if I don’t buy a lottery ticket. The odds are in my favor… Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go look for meteors.

Kevin Owens is a veteran of overseas professional basketball who also writes for Waiting For Godunk and Hugging Harold Reynolds. You can also catch him on Twitter @Waiting4Godunk.