Alright, let’s dive into my little adventure with Birdman and the Cavs. You know, the whole Chris “Birdman” Andersen stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers back in 2016-2017. It was a short ride, but definitely memorable.
It all started when I was messing around with some old NBA data, just kinda exploring player stats and team dynamics from that era. I remembered Birdman signing with the Cavs, so I figured, why not dig into his impact, however small, on that championship-contending team?
First thing I did was pull his game logs. I wanted to see how many games he actually played, how many minutes he was getting, and what his basic stats looked like. Used some Python and Pandas to wrangle the data, nothing too fancy. Just filtering for his time with the Cavs and aggregating the numbers.
Here’s the gist of what I found: He didn’t play a ton. Think it was like, 12 games? And his minutes were pretty limited, maybe around 5-10 minutes a game. But you gotta remember, this was a deep Cavs team with LeBron, Kyrie, and Love. Minutes were hard to come by.
Next, I wanted to see if there were any noticeable changes in the Cavs’ performance when Birdman was on the court. This is where things got a bit tricky. Plus/minus is a decent metric, but it’s noisy. So, I tried to control for some factors, like who else was on the court with him. I even looked at the team’s offensive and defensive ratings during his minutes, compared to their season averages.
Honestly? Didn’t find anything earth-shattering. It’s tough to isolate the impact of a guy playing limited minutes on a team with so much talent. But, I did notice that the Cavs seemed to have a bit more energy on the defensive end when he was in. Maybe it was just the Birdman effect – the guy always played with a ton of hustle.
Then, disaster struck! He got injured, a season-ending ACL tear. That was the end of his time with the Cavs. They ended up waiving him to make room for Deron Williams.
After that, I decided to just focus on the human side of things. I watched some game footage from his time with the Cavs. You could see he was trying to bring that veteran presence, that energy, and that rim protection. He wasn’t gonna light up the scoreboard, but he was trying to contribute in his own way.
In the end, it was a fun little data dive into a brief, almost forgotten chapter in Cavs history. Did Birdman make a huge difference? Probably not. But he was part of that team, and he gave it his all while he was there. It’s a reminder that even the role players have their own stories and contribute to the overall narrative of a season.
- Pulled game logs using Python and Pandas.
- Analyzed minutes played and basic stats.
- Looked for changes in team performance when he was on the court.
- Watched game footage to assess his impact.
- Reflected on his role and contribution to the team.
It’s a reminder that sometimes the most interesting stories are found in the details, in the contributions of the guys who aren’t always in the spotlight.
