Will Heat Stars Take Up Bird Watching As A Restful Hobby?

Can Chris Andersen take flight again?

With the signing if Chris "The Birdman" Andersen, the Heat may have bought themselves some minutes.

As we have already seen this season, the NBA regular season campaign is as much about keeping your stars healthy and rested as it is about becoming cohesive and positioning for the playoffs.  With Danny Granger, Grant Hill, half the Knicks, Derek Rose, half the Lakers, Anderson Varejao, etc etc etc all missing time, teams need to find ways to keep their stars' minutes down.

This brings us to the Heat picking up Chris Andersen on a try-it-out 10-day contract.

Is Andersen the cornerstone of a championship team?  No.  But he is an interesting player that, in limited minutes, could potentially be exactly what the Heat need to keep LeBron and Battier out of the power rotation, get Bosh playing his natural power-forward position (and hopefully get him out of his mental and physical funk), and act as an upgrade over UD and Joel.  Potentially.

If advanced stats paint a picture, I'm pretty excited about the artist's subject.  In 2011-2012, check out here to see Andersen rank 16th in the entire league in one foul-rate stat for his (mostly defensive) play, and here to see how Andersen favorably stacks up against some interesting names.

Now all The Birdman needs to do is play up to these levels in the 2012-2013 season.  If he takes flight, some of the Heat's regulars could relax and bird-watch from the bench, and it's pretty hard to get hurt or too tired from there.