Many Tableau articles and tips use the Superstore example. To be sure, it’s a robust dataset that allows for all sorts of comparisons, charts, calculations. At least for me, though, using a generic dataset is not nearly as much fun. Looking back over my career, that’s been a constant: I’ve tried to enjoy myself every time that I’ve decided to teach myself a new application or programming language.

Along these lines, I grabbed some NBA data from Basketball Reference. It didn’t take long for me to discover the following:

• The San Antonio Spurs have been crazy consistent over the past 27 years.¹
• The Knicks generally suck but saw some glimmers of hope throughout the team’s history.
• The Vancouver Grizzlies were historically bad.
• The best years from the Washington Bullets and Charlotte Bobcats really weren’t that great. 

Go nuts in the following interactive Tableau dataviz:

Feedback

What approaches do you use when you’re learning a new tool?