Every NBA team’s greatest enforcer of all time
By Luke Anton
Denver Nuggets — Chris Andersen
No player in the league has looked more like a punk rock-star than Chris Andersen. Renowned for his many tattoos and mohawks, when Birdman checked into the game, you could count on him to ruffle some feathers. He walked with a strut and an unassuming swagger that never ceased to annoy his opponents.
Undrafted from Blinn College (a Junior college in Texas), Andersen was the first player to ever be called up from the D-League. On the Nuggets, he got to learn from Kenyon Martin and also had the benefit of being flanked by Nene and the Manimal, Kenneth Faried. (Denver Melo had a lot of muscle!) On the Heat, Birdman got to be an enforcer alongside Udonis Haslem, winning a ring with the Heatles in 2013. If you ever got the best of Birdman, he wouldn’t forget. He would seek out revenge, usually by way of soaring in for a monstrous momentum shifting block. Before his mohawk days, Andersen’s favorite celebration was to slick back his hair. His trademark celebration later on, of course, was to flap his Birdman wings, making sure everybody knows that the Bird is the word!