Woke up this morning thinking ’bout how my Oakland team’s been playing lately. Couldn’t figure out who’s actually carrying the squad just from watching games. Felt like I needed hard numbers instead of gut feelings. Grabbed my laptop right after breakfast, still in pajamas honestly.
The Hunting Part
Started simple – went straight to the team’s official site. Big mistake. Stats were scattered everywhere, couldn’t even find this season’s proper totals. Felt like chasing ghosts clicking through player profiles one by one.
Switched tactics fast. Pulled up the league’s main stats page instead. Better! Finally saw everyone listed together, but dang it showed only the basic points per game. Needed way more meat – rebounds, assists, steals, shooting percentages, all that good stuff.
Getting Dirty With Data
Spotted that “Export Data” button. Clicked it faster than a point guard stealing the ball. CSV file popped up like magic. Opened that sucker in Excel and… holy mess. Columns everywhere, weird abbreviations, numbers looking like they partied all night. Took me a solid hour just to:
- Trash the useless columns
- Rename headers so they made actual sense
- Fix all funky number formats messing up my view
Making Sense Of The Madness
Sorted by points per game first. Yeah, J. Thompson’s name jumped out. No shocker there. But then looked deeper. Crunched the numbers different ways:
- Sorting by efficiency rating told a different story – A. Rodriguez wasn’t scoring tons but man was he doing everything else right.
- Filtering by clutch minutes showed R. Jackson keeping cool when the game got tight.
- Checking true shooting percentage? K. Miller shocked me sneaking near the top despite lower scoring.
Seeing The Real Leaders
Kept comparing different combos of stats for like two hours straight. Finally saw clear patterns hitting me in the face:
- A. Rodriguez wasn’t just passing – dude was the absolute engine making everything work, highest assists AND efficiency.
- R. Jackson is our late-game killer – didn’t have big averages overall but always delivered when clock was dying.
- Vets like K. Miller matter way more than the points show – crazy high shooting percentage and always guarded the toughest opponents.
Finished around lunchtime, screen full of messy spreadsheets and my coffee stone cold. Stats don’t tell the whole story obviously, but seeing the numbers? Changed my whole view on who’s really steering this ship through the season. Gonna track these deeper stats every week now.
