[sql-server-2005] SQL query, store result of SELECT in local variable

I came here with a similar question/problem, but I only needed a single value to be stored from the query, not an array/table of results as in the orig post. I was able to use the table method above for a single value, however I have stumbled upon an easier way to store a single value.

declare @myVal int; set @myVal = isnull((select a from table1), 0);

Make sure to default the value in the isnull statement to a valid type for your variable, in my example the value in table1 that we're storing is an int.