Okay, so today I decided to dig into the stats from the Spurs and Timberwolves game. I’ve been trying to get better at tracking player performance, so I thought this would be a good exercise.
First, I fired up my computer and opened my browser. Gotta start somewhere, right?
Finding the Data
I needed to find a reliable source for the game stats. I wanted something that was updated and accurate, you know, not just some random blog post.
- Tried a couple of sports news sites.
- Found a good one with a detailed box score. Sweet!
Getting it Organized
Next, I opened up a spreadsheet. I’m a simple guy, I like to use it. It felt like the easiest way to keep everything straight. Then, I started creating columns for the things I wanted to track:
- Player Name
- Points
- Rebounds
- Assists
- And a few other things like steals and blocks…Because I care about them!
Manual Labor (ugh)
Now came the fun part… manually entering all the data from the website into my spreadsheet. I had to go player by player, copying and pasting their stats.
It felt pretty tedious, ngl, wished there was a super-easy “download to spreadsheet” button, but hey, gotta do what you gotta do.
Making Sense of It All
Once I had all the numbers in, I started playing around with the spreadsheet. I sorted the players by points to see who the top scorer was. Then I looked at rebounds to see who was dominating the boards.
I made some simple calculations.
- Add some of them
- Find the maximum number.
The End(for now)
Finally, it is done. I looked at the data I collected, feeling satisfied.
It wasn’t anything groundbreaking, but I felt like I had a better handle on the game and how each player performed. It’s a starting point, and I’m planning to do this for more games to see if I can spot any interesting trends. Baby steps, right?
