Birdman’s Ready for War

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The criteria required for choosing a favorite athlete should involve a heck of a lot more than just what you find in the box score. Simply put, if you are going to be wearing some guy’s last name on your back when you attend games you don’t want them to be a total asshole. So, while most Heat fans look at their roster and gravitate toward players like Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh or Luol Deng we never considered picking one of those stars. There was only one choice—Chris “Birdman” Andersen.

Andersen, who has appeared in the pages of Inked in the past, has always impressed us with his devil-may-care attitude, hard play and awesome ink. In their first year post-Lebron the Heat failed to make the playoffs, thus Andersen has some unscheduled time off to go get more tattoos. Since he is pretty much covered in ink from the neck down there was only one place to go with the new tattoo, up.

Up to the back of his head to be precise. The back of his mohawk is now framed by tattoos; two sinister looking skulls on the sides and the words “Give Me War” in blood red ink on the bottom. Most of the NBA already knew that Andersen was not one to be trifled with thanks to his maniacal play on the court, but now his ink will serve as a bold warning to rookies looking to make a name for themselves.

The piece was tattooed by Justin Stephan of A Stroke of Genius in Deerfield Beach, Fla. While the tattoo seems indicative of Andersen’s aggressive nature on the court, Stephan shed some light on a different side of the star.

“I want to personally thank [Andersen] for being one of the most down to earth and humble people I have had the chance to tattoo,” Stephan said on Instagram. For his part, Andersen seemed pretty pleased with the work Stephan did as well. “Justin does some insane work!!” Andersen tweeted. “There (sic.) team at the Deerfield location are all kinds of skilled with the ink machine!!”

In the gallery below you can check out a ton of Birdman’s ink and more. If you’ve ever been curious about how a team of tattooed NBA players would do against their non-inked brethren you need to read this article.