Yarone’s late Friday’s joints

Globalization – The player with the highest VAL on Zalgiris of Lithuania was US center Loren Woods. The players with the best VAL for Italian Montepaschi were Rimantas Kaukenas and Ksistof Lavrinovic from … Lithuania. In fact, the latter two combined for a VAL of 45 while all Lithuanian players on the Lithuanian team combined for a VAL of … 40. Neither Kaukenas nor Lavrinovic, by the way, ever played for Zalgiris.

New tunes – How many African big men can you think of who topped the “Best FT%” category in any league? Joventut’s Pops Mensah-Bonsu hit 4 of 4 last week, while yesterday proving he can make it even better by making 11 of 12 from the charity stripe in the loss at Roma. Can you believe this guy averaged 66.7% in the ULEB Cup and 54.6% in LEGA the past season, and that these numbers were considered decent for him?

Career low – In his long, long Euroleague career Nikola Vujcic had finished just one single game with a negative index rating: That was in last year’s semifinals, when Maccabi upset Montepaschi and Nikola had a -2 VAL. This was before his last Euroleague game with Maccabi. After the first game with Olympiacos, Vujcic set a new personal record with a VAL of -3.

Historical moment – If that’s not enough, the game against Unicaja will go down in history books as the first game ever that Nikola Vujcic finished with zero points in a Euroleague game. Vujcic had posted several games with two points, but always somehow found the way to get that ball through the rim. Last night, he missed one shot from close range, another behind the arc, and two shot attempts from the charity stripe. Nikola will surely contribute to Olympiacos down the road when the money is on the line and as long as his team won, he’s happy, but this game won’t be colored with happy shades in the boxscore archives of the Vujcic family.

Zero – Believe it or not but Le Mans, a team with two of the best shooters in Europe - David Bluthenthal and Dewarick Spencer – finished their first home game of the season with zero three pointers made of 12 attempts taken. The duo was responsible for eight of these attempts.

Just across the street – Not too far from there stood Cibona Zagreb. The days Croatian teams were considered great shooting teams are sadly long gone now, but they were just a tiny bit better than Le Mans. A long-range shooting night of 2-for-14 on Cibona’s side shone only next to Le Mans’ performance.

Happy thoughts for Pao – Obviously the biggest result of this week was the big knock out Pao got in Barcelona. The final difference was 24 after Barca were all over the game from tipoff. If you’re a Panathinaikos fan that might even be good news. On 21 March 2007, the last day of the Top 16, Pao traveled to Barcelona only to return to Athens with a very disturbing 21 point defeat. At the end of that season, Pao won their first Euroleague title since 2002.

No guards – Pao scored only 14 field goals inside the arc in the big defeat. Coach Zeljko used 10 players in his rotation, but only four were able to connect from two-point range. Three of them were big guys Fotsis, Batiste and Pekovic. The only saint in the backcourt was … Sarunas Jasikevicius, who knows the nets in Palau Blaugrana pretty well, but still won’t remember this “homecoming game” fondly.

February 14, 2008 – On that day Davor Kus missed his last Euroleague free throw shot until last night in France… Then, at Barcelona, he was only 1-for-3. Then followed a streak of 10 consecutive shots to finish the season, another 6-for-6 last week against Maccabi, and last night one of the best free throw shooters in the Euroleague was stopped. Literally. He finished the game 0-for-7 from the field and a VAL of -8, but when he went to the line in the closing seconds to secure the triumph with Cibona up by three, Kus connected just one. Enough for the win. Goodbye to the streak.

Spencer ties – The weekly followup on the battle between Dewarick Spencer and David Bluthenthal continues, and this week we saw the first tie at 1-1 in their competition “who took more shots?” Spencer contributed 14 shots and Bluth lagged behind with only 11. In between them crept JP Batista with 13. Altogether, the trio provided a little less than 2/3 of Le Mans’ shots.

Few of a kind, part I – Now check out this unique stat line made by Terence Morris. He registered a VAL of 23 but that was the only category in which he totaled double-digits: 9 points, 9 rebounds, 5 blocks, 2 assists and only four field goal attempts. Very, very few players in Europe can reach such a high index rating by doing a little bit of everything.

Stay away! - Some of those fantasy fanatics out there believe that it’s good to take the best players of the weak teams figuring that “well, at least one guy needs to have a decent game.” Panionios, in their home defeat to CSKA, proved this theory wrong. Panionios set a new season low with a team index of 28, while the top individual high on the team was no more than … 7. Several players scored a better individual VAL this week than the entire Greek team.

Few of a kind – part II – So there are very few players like Morris in Europe, and that’s why he’s in CSKA making the big bucks; but his successor in Maccabi, D’or Fischer, showed this week he can produce the same numbers. Fischer crossed the double-digit mark in scoring 11, but added 7 rebounds, 2 blocks and four drawn fouls to reach a VAL of 21.

Foul him! – Daniel Ewing finished this week as the top scorer with 32 points on a great shooting night when Prokom smashed SLUC Nancy 91-62. He hit 7 of 9 from close range, 6 of 8 in the distance and well, no shots from the foul line. Why? Because in the entire game, Ewing was fouled just once by the French defense. Ewing was hot, all right, but when you foul a player in a zone just once in a game it says a lot about the lack of aggressiveness in Nancy’s defense.

Nevertheless more than perfect – Real’s Sergio Llull, the 21-year-old guard, is one of the funnest players to follow in the Euroleague. He’s quick and athletic but most of all plays with no fear. With Real having Raul Lopez and Pepe Sanchez on the roster, Llull probably didn’t expect to see a lot of playing this year before the season tipped off, but now he’s leaving the duo veterans behind. At Partizan, Llull had a perfect game: 19 points, 7-for-7 on two-pointers, 1-for-2 from three, 2-for-2 from the line, one rebound, one assist, one steal, zero turnovers with three personal fouls and two drawn. OK, so it’s not 100% perfect, but if you followed the game you know Llull’s only missed shot and two of his fouls came in the last seconds in attempt to save his team from a loss. On paper, he’s close to perfection. For us watching, he was more than perfect.

Close to perfection on the dark side – So Llull was huge, but take a look at Pepe Sanchez’s stat line from the loss in Beograd: 22 minutes on court, 0 points, 0-of-0 on two-pointers, 0-of-0 on threes, 0-of-0 FT, zero defensive rebounds, zero offensive rebounds, one assist, one steal, two turnovers, 0 bl-f, 0 bl-a, 0 fouls-c, 0 fouls-d and the poetic justice of 0 VAL.

Italian mafia – Efes Pilsen collected a key road win in Milano, and the ones who made the difference were Charles Smith, Milos Vujanic, Michalis Kakiouzis and Bootsy Thornton. What they have in common? All played in LEGA at some point in their career.

Euroleague TV goes Comedy Central

I have spent the last five hours cutting and laughing. Cutting Euroleague TV announcer material, of course.

I was laughing hilariously last night when I watched the games. Some things are funny because the guys actually are funny - sometimes though, I wonder if the Euroleague listens to this stuff and really wants their brand represented like that.

I cut together a TOP3 of this week consisting great name pronunciations, emotions, and of course basketball  wisdom from announcers.

Here you go - enjoy the ride. (Make sure you have no coffee or water in your mouth while you listen - you will spill it!)

Number 3: funny names names.mp3

Number 2: emotions emotions.mp3

Number 1: just listen … wisdom.mp3

NikeID Fantasy Challenge: Thank you, Pops!

The second week of the competition is over, and I really must say: Thank you, Pops Mensah-Bonsu! You are now officially my best fantasy basketball performer ever, at least as far as I can remember. The 37 ranking points were just great, you made my week that went somehow terrible with Stratos Perperoglou recording a stratospheric -6. Come on, Stratos, this is not Greek basketball. At least next week, you have to go hard because I will observe you live. And another game like that, you’ll be kicked off my team.

So after my initial whining, let’s move over to the serious. First of all, congratulations to the weekly winner, Laurent Sallard and his BellevilleFlyingBurritos. Even if the French teams suck (once again) in the Euroleague, at least Laurent, who besides his fantasy guru-ism writes as a full-time journalist for the French website Basketnews.net, hold high the Bleu-Blanc-Rouge flag and that’s why we give him this, despite some minor protests from our webmaster:

So now after two weeks of action, we have a new leader coming out of the dark: EVICROCK and his Dark Half. After a good fifth place finish in the first week, a fourth in this week’s ranking gives him the leader position. He is followed by djalix and his voce del verbe socare team, with vaidasj (first Lithuanian?) is in third. Lsallard also got the biggest mover award as he moved up 91 places in the general ranking from 103 to 12 with his great performance this week. No, not another Marseillaise for him.

In the top movers section, we can also greet the 2nd best, none other than Euroleague Fantasy Challenge boss Javi. The biggest loser in the race for Final Four tickets is zafman, who dropped 64 places from 14th to 78th.

Let’s check quickly how did my tips from last Tuesday perform so that you can see if these hints are useful for you or not. While my Point Guard choice of Nikos Zisis was correct with 12.1 ranking points, Sergio Llull would have been the performer in the low budget sector. For the second category, Immanuel McElroy is particularly regular despite the loss of ALBA in Istanbul. However, Stratos Perperoglou, well, I don’t mention his name anymore today. For the big guys, Stephane Lasme was quite a correct pick with 17.6 ranking points against Real while Zoran Erceg was a total bust at -1. My two special picks won’t be menionned today because I can’t remember their names anymore.

So much about the review of this week, I will just mention the places of the two BallinEurope teams: I am currently placed 18th and Tobias has moved up nicely to a 77th spot after gaining 30 places.

Basketball fight: Arizona WILDcat strikes in Russia

Ilya Kalyagin, our source from Russia, lives in Rostov. On Tuesday, Spartak St. Petersburg played Lokomotiv Rostov in the Russia Cup quarterfinal. Just to let you know who players are on these teams:

Spartak St. Petersburg:

• head coach Yevgeny Pashutin, former assistant coach of Ettore Messina at CSKA Moscow
• Zakhar Pashutin, Yevgeny’s brother and former CSKA player for Ettore Messina
• Joseph Blair - US player who played for Armani Jeans Milano and attended University of Arizona

Lokomotiv Rostov

• D.J. Collins, who will always be remembered as the “chicken and porn guy” with the funniest interviews
• Fred House, US guard, who won the ULEB Cup with Lietuvos Rytas in 2005

Seems to be a pretty good matchup, right?

Well, the game was anything but good. It seems as if the Arizona Wildcats players in Europe have one serious issue: punching other players on the court in the face. About two weeks ago, it was Loren Woods who swung his fist, now - Joseph Blair - and let me tell you I would not want to be the one receiving a straight fist from a guy like this. The guy who got hit now looks like this.

Sixteen — 16! — players were removed from the court and play resumed. First it was a 4-on-4, before ultimately becoming a 3-on-3 match.

Here is video footage of the fistfight. It looks like the two Russian players were arguing when the guy in white was pushed. It seems like he wanted to get back at the assailant, but, well, Blair delivered first.

Ilya also has footage from the 4on4 4on4 as well as the 3on3. 3on3 It turns out that Blair and the Russian guard Visnevski will be disqualified for at least 5 games.

Win a Euroleague TV package!

People have been complaining about the price of the EL.tv package that is available. We think it is worth every cent and everybody who loves the Euroleague should have it.

To prove that we really want the best for the fans, we got one full season package and will give it away for free.

Of course we can’t just give it away like that. Here’s the deal.

Many people have been complaining about the Euroleague commentators. Here is your chance to show us that you can do better. Fair deal, isn’t it? Just watch the following video of the top 10 plays of the first week and record YOUR version of commentating. Put it on YouTube and post the link within the comments of this post.

The contest will be open until next week, Wednesday November 5th. We will announce the winner on that day and send you your Euroleague TV package that day as well, so you can watch the first games right away.

Turn on your microphones!

If you have any questions just send us an email crew(a)ballineurope.com, but be careful: If you’re good, we might forward it to the Euroleague and you could have a new job offer!

Euroleague Final Four tickets

A few days ago, the Euroleague announced that Euroleague Final Four tickets for Berlin would be sold tomorrow, Wednesday October 29th, on this web site. Thanks to Pucki of schoenen-dunk.de, we know that right now you can buy tickets here and on the official Euroleague web site.

The tickets, which cover the two days in Berlin on May 1st and May 3rd, will go on sale at 12:00 only on the official Euroleague web site.

A few minutes ago, we got an email that there will be a pre-sale at 11:00am on this exclusive web site.

The web site already tells us the following rules:

• Every customer will only be able to buy 6 tickets
• Tickets for price category 1 and 2 include catering
• Tickets can be paid by credit card only
• The tickets will be sent in spring 2009
• Tickets can not be re-sold

We know the tickets will probably go for 100-800 Euros again, as they did last year. If you don’t want to spend that much money, I really hope that you signed up for our private league at the Euroleague fantasy game, where we’re giving away two tickets as the first prize.

We’ll try to look on the web site tomorrow, see how things go, and if we’re able to buy tickets at 11am and noon

In case you want to buy some tickets, good luck!

LAST UPDATE 1:52pm: Tickets are now being sold through the official Euroleague web site.

UPDATE 1:37pm: Right now - online ticketing works here.

UPDATE 1:26pm: According to BallinEurope reader Teo, the best and only way to get tickets right now is “to use the hotline of the O2 world ticketing service.”

UPDATE 1:08pm: Eventim still isn’t selling any tickets, while the Euroleague added the domain berlinf4.com within their official statement about the ticket sales. The new statement now also does not mention any time when the tickets will go on sale.

UPDATE 12:25pm: Still both sites, eventim and berlinfinalfour.com, are not offering any tickets

UPDATE 11:54am: All pages are down at this momentm so no tickets can be bought right now.

UPDATE 10:56am: The web site where you where able to buy tickets is closed down again. I wonder what happens to the people that already ordered.

UPDATE 10:05am: The web site is live and tickets are being sold already. Here are the prices:

Category 1: no seats available

Category 2: no seats available

Category 3: 883.00 EUR

Category 4: 663.00 EUR

Category 5: 399.00 EUR

Category 6: 267.00 EUR

Category 7: 120.00 EUR

The best seat available for 883 EUR right now is in row 17! at half court. How did that many tickets were sold at 10:00am when the official start of the sale is at 12:00? By the way, one ticket in the very LAST row at about half court is 267 EUR.

Here is a map of the O2 world in Berlin and what is still available at 10:24am (red - sold, green still available).

Last-second choices for the NIKEiD Fantasy Challenge

The deadline is approaching; Wednesday at 18h00 CET; so we should check who are the best bets for the Euroleague Fantasy Challenge this week. Also don’t forget to register your team in the BallinEurope Private league to win fantastic prizes such as 2 tickets for the Euroleague Final Four in Berlin (Deadline to register: tonight at 23h CET). Right now, the goal is to get the most “sure” additional value in order to have the necessary credits for the upcoming weeks. But first of all, here are the moves I made on my team.

OUT:

Ricardo Greer (SLUC Nancy), John Cox (SLUC Nancy) and Kostas Tsartsaris (Panathinaikos) - 124.9 credits

IN:

Zygimantas Janavicius (Zalgiris Kaunas), Will McDonald (TAU Ceramica) and Carlos Jimenez (Unicaja) - 127.6 credits

Both French players were the big disappointments for me on Day 1 with a combined -2 ranking points. Even if they play now against Sopot and the chances to perform well are there, I don’t want to go for a too big risk in losing credits and traded them away. The choice then was between Kostas Tsartsaris and Juan Carlos Navaro. My choice went to the Greek Center as I see a better possibility for Navarro to come up with a big performance this week in the game against…Panathinaikos.

The main scorer of the first round was Will McDonald, and he is still available at an affordable price. And even if he comes up with a 0 ranking points in the upcoming game against Union Olimpija, his value would increase by the maximum 15%. The return of Tiago Splitter will probably reduce Will’s playing time but this sure value gainer could not be overgone. Another sure value gainer is of Mirza Begic, but his low current price makes him not as interesting because of the 15% price increase limit. That’s why I did not sign him and made a small bet on Carlos Jimenez. The veteran is currently playing great for Aito’s team and he should be able to contine this way against Olympiacos this week. Zygimantas Janavicius should see once again an interesting playing time with Zalgiris.

Who are the other players to sign?

Point Guards: Nikos Zisis could be an interesting option after his great game of the first week. At a current value of 40.3 credits, even a mediocre game against Panionios will make him good value. For smaller budgets, Sergio Llull is a sure pick at 17.3 credits as the Spanish youngster is seeing lots of minutes both in the Euroleague and the ACB. He will also increase his current value in nearly any case.

Shooting Guards and Small Forwards: Immanuel McElroy should certainly be considered at his current price of 56.4 credits. The ALBA Berlin player will again have an important role as Julius Jenkins may not be restablished at 100%. Stratos Perperoglou is currently a “no-brainer” as the Greek forward is seeing big time minutes with big time production for Panathinaikos. And his cost is nice at 32.2 credits.

Power Forwards and Centers: Stephane Lasme of Partizan may be worth a look as he seems to be quite a good value but the opposition of Real Madrid and Felipe Reyes may cause him some trouble.  Zoran Erceg may be an interesting pick as the Serbian Center is still quite a good value and should come up with regular performances for a winning team.

What else to observe?

Don’t forget to watch at the BallinEurope Injury List in order to see if one of your players should be traded.  Because of the absence of Patrick Femerling, Adam Chubb (ALBA Berlin - 58.6 credits) could be an interesting choice. The newly signed Dragisa Drobnjak won’t see lots of minutes probably and the young Fenerbahce frontcourt could have some trouble to stop Chubb. Because of the multiple injuries in the AJ Milano backcourt, Yohann Sangaré (AJ Milano - 23.8 credits) may see extended minutes. The scoring ability of the French guard may help him to score some Fantasy points.

Euroleague Power Ranking (Week 1)

Here we go for the first Euroleague Power Ranking of this season. Of course, one game into 2008/2009 does not say that much, so I am prepared to get destroyed by our readers if they disagree with my ranking. Just note that I used a tiny calculation to establish my list before putting my feelings into it. So at least I can say that mathematically, this ranking has some kind of accuracy.

1. Regal FC Barcelona (1-0)

Xavi Pascual has been critized all over the continent but his team is currently playing excellent basketball. After nearly beating the Lakers in Los Angeles and taking a long flight back to Europe, they totally destroyed French champions SLUC Nancy in their gym. To continue, they beat CAI Zaragoza at home to stay at the top of the ACB right now.

2. CSKA Moscow (1-0)

The Russian powerhouse had a dominant win at home against AJ Milano and continued their streak in the Russian Superleague by winning in Saint Petersburg against a good Spartak team. The integration of Terrence Morris looks better now, too, as he was the top scorer and rebounder for Ettore Messina’s squad.

3. Olympiacos (1-0)

A nice away win against Euroleague newcomer Air Avellino and another win on the road in the Greek League puts the Reds in third place of our first power ranking of the season. Josh Childress and his teammates are ready for the next step.

4. Panathinaikos (1-0)

The Greens continue to impress with big wins, both in the Euroleague and the Greek League. But both times, it was against smaller opposition. A reduced Zalgiris Kaunas team was no serious threat for Panathinaikos and neither could AEL 1964 stop Obradovic’s roster.

5. Montepaschi Siena (1-0)

Montepachi started the new Euroleague season with a small win against a proper Asseco Prokom team and managed to beat a strong Teramo by only one point on the road. Rimantas Kaukenas looks like he will step up as team leader this season, as evidenced by his 28 points this weekend.

6. Efes Pilsen Istanbul (1-0)

Efes came off a very short victory against last year’s quarterfinalists Partizan Belgrade to open their season at home. Not quite the most impressive start but the newly formed team will need some more games in order to be ready. A big win in the Turkish League helps boost confidence.

7. Unicaja Malaga (1-0)

Unicaja managed to win their season opener in the Euroleague against a pretty strong Le Mans team. The game was open for large moments and it was only in the final seconds that Unicaja brought the first win home. In the Spanish ACB, Aito’s team beat DKV Joventut and remains at the top of the league right now.

8. Real Madrid (1-0)

What a week for Joan Plaza’s team. A convincing Euroleague start at home against Panionios followed by the epic overtime loss at the Palacio Vistalegre against last-place team ACB Cajasol Sevilla. However, this second loss in the domestic competition should not be overweighted.

9. TAU Ceramica (1-0)

The team from Vitoria started their Euroleague season pretty well by dominating Fenerbahce Ülker in the Euroleague season opener. In the domestic ACB League, TAU suffered their first loss of the season on the road against Bruesa this weekend.

10. ALBA Berlin (1-0)

ALBA came back to the Euroleague with an impressive win against Lottomatica Roma and its high expectations. The massive crowd at O2 World Arena pushed Luka Pavicevic’s team to a great defensive effort. In the domestic league, ALBA had no game this weekend but are still at the top of the standings.

11. DKV Joventut Badalona (1-0)

Even without Ricky Rubio, Badalona has still an impressive roster and plays good basketball. A solid win over Olimpija Ljubljana but a defeat against ACB leaders Unicaja put Joventut somewhere in the middle of our rankings this week.

12. Le Mans (0-1)

Le Mans nearly managed to open their wins on the road by losing shortly against Unicaja in Spain during the week. In the French ProA, they are still undefeated and had no problem winning big time against Vichy with a great defensive effort.

13. Fenerbahce Ülker (0-1)

The Turkish team had a very difficult start to the season by traveling to Vitoria, and Fenerbahce could not overcome the strong Spanish team. In the domestic league, they had no problems winning big against Kepez on the road.

14. Partizan Belgrade (0-1)

Two games within the shortest of possible margins: This is the recap of Partizan’s week. After losing by one in Istanbul during the week, Milenko Tepic and his teammates won an overtime thriller on the road against KK Zagreb in the Adriatic League.

15. Lottomatica Roma (0-1)

Lottomatica started the Euroleague season with a very strong team built around the Slovenian combo of Sani Becirovic and Primoz Brezec. However, this was not enough to win their opener in Berlin. In the Italian Lega, Jasmin Repesa is still undefeated as coach this season.

16. Air Avellino (0-1)

The small Italian team had one of the toughest oppositions to start the new season and logically lost against Olympiacos. The team fought back nicely by winning on the road in the Italian league against Cantù, however.

17. Cibona Zagreb (1-0)

Cibona started pretty well in the new Euroleague season by beating the co-champion of the 2007-08 Euroleague edition at home. However, Maccabi is currently far from being a title contender. Additionally, Cibona struggles in the Adriatic League and lost this weekend on the road against FMP.

18. Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv (0-1)

Maccabi is currently far from their logical expectations. Losing on the road in Zagreb is certainly not the best way to start the new Euroleague season, but poor performances during the preseason could have been seen as an early trend. The opening win in the Israeli league will eventually help them find the right way.

19. Union Olimpija (0-1)

The Slovenian team is still not complete but managed to show a decent game on the road in Badalona in the opener. But two losses in the first five Adriatic League games indicate that Union Olimpija is still not where they want to be in terms of results.

20. SLUC Nancy (0-1)

The French champions know now what the level of the Euroleague is now after their opening home loss against FC Barcelona. The team’s reaction was impressive, though, in winning by 30 points against Pau-Orthez on the road in the French league; but Pau is currently last in the ProA.

21. Asseco Prokom (0-1)

The Polish team showed a nice performance in the season opener of the Euroleague in losing by only nine points against Montepaschi on the road. But the team is not really dominating the Polish league, either, and it will be interesting to follow their development in a relatively poor Euroleague group.

22. Panionios (0-1)

The Greek newcomers lost heavily in Madrid in their Euroleague season opener but managed to fight back with a nice away win the Greek league against AEK Athens.

23. Zalgiris Kaunas (0-1)

The Lithuanian team had a hard time in Athens for the opener against Panathinaikos. And their first games of the current season in the Baltic League were not that promising, either. Additionally, the multitude of player and coach changes don’t put them into a position to be ready very quickly.

24. Armani Jeans Milano (0-1)

Danilo Gallinari’s former team faces a very tough start to the season. A totally renewed roster and a new coach seem to this far be unready to compete in both the Euroleague and the Lega. A loss against Caserta puts them at 1-2 in the Italian championship and in last place in our first power ranking of the season.

Euroleague Fantasy: Additional prizes by K1X and other notes

Week 1 of the Euroleague Fantasy Challenge is done. It was not a very successful start for most users, as only one team in the entire game reached the magical 200 points level.

• Additional prizes

First of all, we want to mention that we have additional prizes for our private league. Thanks to German streetwear brand K1X, we have got brand new sneakers and apparel to offer to the best of our league. We highly suggest visiting their online shop if you need some attractive new stuff to impress on and off the basketball court.

So here is now the complete round up of our prizes.

1st Place        2 Entrance Tickets for the Euroleague F4 in Berlin
2nd Place       1 complete package of K1X apparel
3rd Place        2 pairs of K1X sneakers
4th                   1 pair of K1X sneakers
5th                   1 pair of K1X sneakers
6th to 8th        1 Official Euroleague basketball
9th to 13th      1 Official Euroleague cap

• Private league notes

As we have said already several times, every user is only allowed to have one team in the league. So please decide who you want to have in. Belzébuth, BenWarner, Diogenes, frappy44, Hugo35, Jogonic, simon23, th2005 and others that still have multiple teams in the league, make your choice before the deadline. If you still have multiple teams in there, I will choose which team will stay.

The deadline for joining our private league is Tuesday evening 23h00. This deadline also counts toward taking your decision on the multiple teams in the private league. After that, no more changes are possible.

• What to do now with your team?

After having disputed the first week of the competition, it is now very important that you take the right decision in order to not lose contact with the top. Additionally, you should know that even if your players did not start very well, it doesn’t mean that you are already out of the race. With the right moves, you should be back on track easily. So here is my advice as how to manage your team this week.

My first goal is to get rid of underperformers. As the value of the players changes from week to week, somebody who started with a bad performance will most likely see another drop in his value next week, even if he plays very well. Example: Ricardo Greer (SLUC Nancy - 56.95 credits) came up with a 0 ranking points game. This made his value drop from 67 to 56.95. Even if he goes for a 20 ranking points performance next game, his average ranking would only be 10 and his value would drop even more. So Ricardo needs to go for an extraordinary game if he wants not lose value. It’s up to you to decide.

Find the players that gain in value. What counts for Greer in the negative way is also valid for positive development. Players that performed very well in Week 1 are pretty sure to continue gaining in value in Week 2 even if they have a bad game. It is very important to increase the money available in order to buy strong performers later on in the game. Now how to find these “sure bets”: First of all, check the most bought players on the official fantasy website; these are most likely to be the picks. Additionally, you can go through all the box scores and find the big performers of Week 1.

• The BallinEurope.com teams

We also want to share with you how our own teams performed. And in order to to give you a better view on this, here are the compositions of my team and Tobias’.

As you can see, Tobias’ team had a few very bad performances individually. So I would get rid of the highly priced guys that underperformed. Switching Jordi Trias (Regal FCB - 38.25 credits) and Jan Jagla (DKV Joventut - 34.85) would be my first moves, as you can get better value than these two guys for this money right now.

On my own team, I am pretty satisfied except with my French connection. So both of them will leave and will be replaced. I am not quite sure who I’m going to add, as I want to see the stats from all of this weekend’s league games in order to take my decisions. But I will keep you updated as to the players that join my squad.

Monday’s cigarettes

Let’s start the new week with some exciting stories from around the continent.

• Two of the best highflyers of the Spanish ACB met this weekend: Marcus Haislip of Unicaja and Pops Mensah-Bonsu of Joventut Badalona. And both guys had good games, especially Haislip, who finished with a 3-of-5 effort from behind the arc.

• Elie Seckbach, also known as the Embedded NBA Correspondent, came up with a very interesting interview with former TAU and AJ Milano player James Singleton. Even though it was published a month ago, we wanted to mention it, since James tells Elie that people in Europe throw Euro coins at basketball players. James should have told Tyson Chandler so that the Hornet could have avoided this.

• The weekly Brandon Jennings watch: 17 minutes, 1 point (0/4 FGs, 1/2FTs), 1 rebound and 3 assists.

• Fabien Friconnet talks in his blog on basketnews.net about the good old days. When he started to watch Euroleague TV this week, he got a flashback: One of his old VHS tapes featuring a first half of a Champions Cup game between Maes Pils Mechelen and Olympiakos Piraeus. Living in France where basketball on TV is not that common, he is used to always seeing at least one French team play. I’m not quite sure, but I would guess it was this game. And while reading his post, I am also pretty sure that I watched that game on Eurosport at the time as well. Just one question, why is the Belgian team called WATCO on the FIBA Europe stat sheet?

• Nice effort by Ken Johnson of Telekom Baskets Bonn: The center finished the game against the Cologne 99ers with 8 points, 6 rebounds and 8 blocked shots, including five in the first 10 minutes.

• Josh Childress already made it to the first top 10 plays of the Euroleague with a massive rejection. However, the play of the day for me was Mike Hall’s Kobe-esque basket with the foul. By the way, Draftexpress had a longer piece on the American forward.

• Ricky Rubio got a nice cake for his 18th birthday this week.

Next Page »