Yarone’s Weekend Joints - Part II
December 22, 2008 by Yarone · 3 Comments
The last pack of Joints before the big break presents you with the stories behind the games in Barcelona and Roma, with a short stop in Athens and a final visit to Kaunas.
Puff it up!
Mirza Bryant?
An NBA glitch for a minute. The most memorable game from Kobe’s rookie season was the last of that season: The Lakers were down 3-1 against the Jazz and playing game 5 in Salt Lake City. It came down to a tied-up game on the last possession and Laker ball. Kobe was an 18-year-old rookie back then, having started in only six games the entire season and averaging about 8 points per game — Far from the sole go-to guy he became later on.
Nevertheless, Kobe took that last shot that hit nothing but … air. The game went into overtime. Some might thought the kid would shy from the ball after the airball, but nothing was about to stop Bryant. Not even when he made another airball, and another and then another. Three airballs in a row on decent (Kobe-style) shots in a single overtime.
Kobe detractors celebrated and claimed nothing would come of such a selfish kid who shoots airball after airball in a clutch moment in a playoff game in his rookie season. For one of the writers on Ballineurope.com, though, it was a sign this kid was something special. So very few players have the balls to take such shots and continue to play like nothing has changed after the first airball.
What does this have to do with the Euroleague? In recent weeks, we’ve seen a 17-year-old kid named Mirza Sarajlija who plays 20 minutes per game for Olimpija. In Roma, with the game tied at 62-62 and the final seconds of regulation running down, Sarajlija held the ball. Veterans like Jasmin Hukic and Ivica Jurkovic were in Olimpija’s lineup but the kid, who was 1-for-7 from the field to that point, didn’t only have the ball but also the balls. Sarajlija ran the clock down and took the game on his shoulders. His shot hit nothing but … air.
Olimpija somehow manged to tie the score and the game went into overtime, but not before the kid had another chance to win the match and instead turned the ball over. While we didn’t witness another series of airballs in overtime by the skilled Sarajlija, but he kept his game going and didn’t hide from the ball. There’s something special in this kid…
The Barcelona show
No doubt who’s the hottest team in Europe now: It didn’t even take the two losses in three games by CSKA to put an undisputed crown on Barcelona’s head in the last days of 2008. The 24-point win over Pao in the first leg wasn’t impressive enough. Barca had already smashed Pao that badly twice already in the last years, but didn’t do much more than that later the season.
In the last two weeks, things have changed. First came the easy-easy-easy win in OAKA, and this week the team tortured Montepaschi with a 25-3 first-quarter start. Lavrinovic entered the game on a 0-for-10 streak from the arc and at the final buzzer “climbed” to 1-for-14, but that three-pointer was the bucket that saved his team from a quarter of a round zero points. Take a look at the team stats close to the end of that first quarter and figure it out.
The thing about Barca is not that they look unstoppable, they just make the opponent look miserable. Very, very miserable. The following Joint might explain it best.
First ever for Rimas
Coach Simone Pianigiani’s players seemed in total shock from tip off to buzzer. Nobody played close to his level. Probably the best example was Rimas Kaukenas, one of yours truly’s favorite players. The best way to describe his game style would be to say he’s an all-around guard. Kaukenas can score, sometimes even a lot, but he’s not a scorer. He does a lot of things on court. He’ll rebound, assist, steal and make the defense move to create situations for his teammates. Not a lot of players contribute in so many aspects on court in such a steady manner as the Lithuanian talent.
Let’s put it into numbers. From 2000/01, when he started his pro career after college, to today, Kaukenas played 96 games in European competitions and 276 in domestic leagues in Israel, Lithuania, Belgium, Germany and Italy for six different teams. In the European cup games, Kaukenas didn’t finish a single game without one rebound or assist. Always at least one of the above. Mostly, of course, with more than one in both.
In domestic league games, Kaukenas had only seven nights without a rebound or assist. In five of these seven, he had at least one steal; in the other two, he had no steals as well but at least drew fouls. In Barcelona, he had his worst game ever in this respect: He played over 32 minutes, more than anyone else in Montepaschi, finishing with eight points on 4-for-12 shooting from the field, but lost three balls and was blocked twice. That’s it. For the first time ever in his pro career, a total of 344 games, Kaukenas finished a game with no rebounds, no assists, no steals and no fouls drawn. If you needed an image of Montepaschi’s lack of production, even on a miniscule scale, on that night, Kaukenas was the perfect example.
Saved by the Point
Montepaschi scored only three points in the first quarter at Barcelona, but stayed out of the record books. The one to hold the undignified record for fewest points in a quarter is another Italian club: Benetton Treviso. Under one of the best coaches out there, Ettore Messina, Benetton scored just two points in the third quarter of their Top 16 game in Istanbul against Efes Pilsen on March 10, 2005. The final score was a 52-43 win for the Turks.
If you’re looking for a link between the games, you can find it in Henry Domercant. Back in 2005, Domercant was on Efes and excelled with 16 points, 8 rebounds and an index rating of 24. This week, he was on the other side with Montepaschi, but was still best on his team with 13 points, 5 boards and an index of 17.
Where we stand, Group C
Tau (6-2) will travel to Roma (6-2) after the break and must win if they want to finish on top. An Italian win will give Sani the first spot in this group thanks to two wins over the club from Vitoria. In recent years, no team other than CSKA has managed to beat Tau on both legs.
Olimpija is now officially out of the picture, so three teams will fight over two tickets. Fenerbahce Ulker’s (4-4) big win over Joventut (4-4) this week will most likely be enough to give them an advantage in any tiebreaker. Fener will be out only if Alba wins both games and Ricky’s gang does not get a victory at Tau. Since Joventut still needs to play in Vitoria (although that game might not matter to Tau if they lose in Roma) and will host Alba (3-5), the chances of the two teams chasing the Turks to pass them are slim.
All this means that the fourth ticket will be decided in Badalona right after the break when Joventut hosts Alba. The differences play no role here. A win by Simas’ gang will keep Alba out of the Top 16. In the case of a German win, the club from Catalonia will need to win in Vitoria and pray for Alba to lose at home against knocked-out Olimpija in front of 13,000 fans in O2 arena.
Paulius the first
One last bit from Kaunas. Paulius Jankunas had another big game in front of his fans, but this one will go in history books. He finished with a season high of 23 points, going 5-for-5 inside the arc and a surprising 3-for-5 from distance. The Lithuanian big guy can shoot from outside, but he’s someone you can leave open with the state of mind “So he’ll make one of three at best. I can live with that.” That’s probably true but no consolation for Prokom, who saw Jankunas hit three times from beyond the arc for the first time in his Euroleague career, a total of 96 games.
Triple Lior
Since Pini Gershon rearrived in Tel Aviv, Lior Eliyahu is blooming. This week he notched his third double-double in a row. As noted by Arale Weisberg on Ynet.co.il, Maccabi legends Anthony Parker and Nikola Vujcic never held such streak. Maceo Baston reached it just once and Nate Huffman three times. The Euroleague longest streak is held by two double-double masters: Mirsad Turkcan and Joe Blair. Both reached a streak of seven, which is no surprise as they also have double-double career averages.
It’s raining three’s
When CSKA shoots 14 three pointers at a 48.2% clip on you in Moscow and you still win, it’s close to a miracle. True, the Russians missed Siska and Smodis, but it’s still one very impressive win for the Spanish squad. Three pointers played a big role in this game, as the teams combined for 26 hits from that range in 50 attempts, and didn’t fall far behind the shots taken inside the arc (31-for63).
Most unique was that no fewer than 10 players — five on each team — scored more times from long range than from inside the arc. Aleksey Savrasenko and Erazem Lorbek were the only CSKA players who didn’t shoot from distance, and obviously scored more inside it. J.R. Holden was the exception. For Real, only Hervelle and Massey tried both options and were more successful from the inside. The rest — Felipe Reyes, Sergio Llull and Venson Hamilton — avoided shooting from three-point land.
Ricardo’s trauma
Panathinaikos and Nancy met in OAKA in one of the most boring games of the season. Pao won, as expected, 83-69, and that’s was the main problem: It was too expected. Both sides played with no real passion. Pao took a double-digit lead in the second quarter and from there the game continued to be played, but nothing happened.
Well, almost nothing. Ricardo Greer, who’s on the sure path to have the worst turnover per game ratio in Euroleague history as published here, contributed another unforgettable performance with seven turnovers. If you keep in mind that he had a season high of eight in the first game against the Greeks, you get an average of 7.5 turnovers per game. The irony is that those two games also represented his best index rating performances of the season. In France, he had his season high in points with 26, five rebounds and index of 19, while this week he tallied 21 points, six rebounds and 16 index rating.
Where we stand, Group D
Despite the losses, unless the Earth move, CSKA (6-2) will finish this group on top. Real (5-3) stands a very good chance to finish second, but it’s far from a done deal, as they still need to play in Milano and host the only team in the final week that can still snatch the spot: Efes.
The last two tickets are up for grabs, as Efes (4-4) and three teams with a 3-5 record - Partizan, Milano and Panionios — can finish in or out of the pack. Panionios will play at Partizan and host Milano in the upcoming weeks and a lot will be decided in these battles. We might even see here a four-way tie at 4-6, so everything is still wide open in this race.
Difference-making Sani
The index rating doesn’t always reflect what happened on court, but in a very certain way did show what took place in Roma. The game went to overtime and could have gone in favor of the visitors but by the end of the night, Roma had a team index rating of 86 while the group from Ljubljana was stuck at 49: A difference of 37 that doesn’t tell the story of the night, but funnily enough former Olimpija player Sani Becirovic finished the game with an index rating of 38 on the way to MVP of the Week honors. A single Roma player wasn’t too far from Olimpija’s total, and almost made the entire difference between the teams.
Who profits from all the injuries?
December 3, 2008 by Christophe · 1 Comment
This week, a lot of bad news happened and some fantasy owners have to some major changes in the fantasy teams. Sani Becirovic was injured and as one of the major contributors, lots of managers need to go for some changes. And as one of the hottest players of the moment in the SG/SF position was also injured (according to some internet rumors) — I’m speaking about Charles Smith here — it will be tough to go for a good move on this position.
My problem of the week is the following, though. I wanted to get rid of two of my players at the SG and SF positions and replace them by Becirovic and Smith. Now both are injured so I’m asking myself what to do. The first player I wanted to sell is Immanuel McElroy from ALBA Berlin, but with Julius Jenkins still out and no Becirovic in Rome, Imac may come up with a good game so he’ll stay on the team. The second guy to move was Emir Preldzic. He’s on the decline right now, so he’s out. With Becirovic injured, I see another player stepping up for Roma this week, and that’s Rodrigo de la Fuente. As Allan Ray may miss the game, too, the Spanish veteran should see a lot of minutes and could come up with some interesting stats.
In order to improve my team even more, I chose then to finally trade Sergio Llull away. The Spanish youngster had a great run, but now it’s time to cash in and get a real big-time guard rotation. In order to do so, I needed to get a bit more credits so Felipe Reyes left the boat. Reyes was replaced by last week’s MVP Edu Hernandez-Sonseca, who should bring solid ranking points against Olimpija and should also gain in value. So I have enough credits to bring Lynn Greer to my team. So, recapping my moves:
OUT: Emir Preldzic (Fenerbahce), Felipe Reyes (Real Madrid) and Sergio Llull (Real Madrid).
IN: Lynn Greer (Olympiacos), Rodrigo de la Fuente (Lottomatica) and Edu Hernandez-Sonseca (Joventut).
Tips from the Euroleague Fantasy boss: Week 4
Hello everyone, this is Javier Gancedo, always from Euroleague Basketball. Looks like it has been yet another great fantasy week for me. I am beginning to get worried after modifying all my previous entries because of injuries. Seriously. We’ll see what happens this week.
It has been a fantastic week in Euroleague, especially the nine-game marathon last night. We all finished at 2am, totally destroyed but happy to have experienced the best regular season in Euroleague Basketball history.:Buzzer-beaters, Louis Bullock, double-overtime games, Vlado Ilievski missing again at the buzzer, close games, passion, drama, upsets… Seriously, the Euroleague is getting better than ever, and it is impressive that CSKA is the only unbeaten team, despite being without J.R. Holden and Matjaz Smodis.
Before anything else, I would like you to introduce our new online game, the Eurocup FabFive Challenge!
This is a very down-to-earth, exciting game in which you can pick five players, one from each range, with no restrictions whatsoever. If you want to have five point guards, go ahead. Five centers? Be my guest. Just keep in mind that players may move from one group to another depending on their index rating and you will need to trade every week to have a valid, five-player team. The trades after Week 1 should be exciting. Players can go from the top group to the bottom one if they have a really bad night, and vice versa! Just build your team and maybe we all can put together a private league. OK, well, keep reading and then make a team, but don’t forget: It’s a great game, we all think.
As for Fantasy Challenge, I had a pretty decent week with good trades, especially Emir Preldzic. Preldzic rolled against Olimpija, showing he is the closest thing to Toni Kukoc in 1990 that European basketball has seen lately. If he keeps developing, Preldzic will be a hell of a player, mark my words. I moved up to 9th place in the BallinEurope private league and yes, I erased some of my deficit in the Kuqo situation. I even cracked the Top 40 with a different team. I’m telling you all this because bad times will come, no doubt about it. Of course, beating EVICROCK will be tough, as he is doing very, very well.
As for this week, I wanted to trade early because honestly, I wanted you all to know about FabFive as soon as possible. I may regret my trades before the deadline and if so, I will notify you right away - especially since it’s quite probable that someone will get injured, anyway.
Remember when I told you Nikos Zisis would be there until Holden comes back? I’ve changed my mind, since Belgrade is a tough place to play and I expect the game to be low-scoring. I also traded Bracey Wright due to the showdown against Tau Ceramica and then removed Felipe Reyes because Kerem Gonlum may out-rebound him. Those are my three trades this week.
I believe Armani Jeans Milano has been playing well lately and, since they play Panionios On Telecoms at home, I think it’s time for them to do well in front of their fans. Therefore, I added Michael Hall at power forwards and centers, a big moneymaker. My main move this week was picking up Chris Warren of Air Avellino. Warren plays against Cibona and even while Rawel Marshall will also be extremely motivated, I am sure that the Avellino swingman will have a good game. At point guard, I had to choose between Lynn Greer and Earl Calloway. I’m going with Greer for the sake of Euroleague experience, even though I wrote the Cibona-Olympiacos game report and Calloway was just UNSTOPPABLE in the third quarter.
So my team goes like this:
Aaron Miles - Another Cajasol playmaker that leaves the team and becomes a Euroleague star. Oh my.
Lynn Greer - Should have an interesting shootout against Dewarick Spencer in Le Mans.
Jonas Maciulis - The Bull returns home to play Regal FC Barcelona. He should be a solid choice.
Emir Preldzic - Has been unstoppable lately and is way underpriced.
Sani Becirovic - Sanny Boy is the Euroleague superstar he was several years ago. In top shape right now.
Chris Warren - Again the X factor. He should be ready to do well against Cibona.
Mirza Begic - It’s more than seven extra credits in our teams. You have him, right? C’mon, don’t lie.
Mike Hall - I liked what I saw in Madrid this week. Few power forwards are playing more minutes right now.
Mirsad Turkcan - Even when Andre Hutson knows him well, Turkcan should out-rebound EVERYBODY!
Mike Batiste - Big Mike always plays better on the road and the game in Sopot should be no exception.
As always, good luck in the Fantasy Challenge… And try the Fab Five, the great game with the gangsta name!
Last-second choices for the NIKEiD Fantasy Challenge
October 19, 2008 by Christophe · 1 Comment
The deadline for the Euroleague Fantasy game is approaching. Monday October 20th at 19h30 CET is the time when all the changes will be locked and your teams are set for the first round of competition. So here we go with some tips for your last-minute choices for your team in order to be competitive.
- Check well who is injured or just came back
What is important in this game is to have no injured player in your team. Of course, you can’t avoid players that turn their ankle during the warm-up but at least take a look at our Euroleague Injury list and see who is a long term injury case. The more critical choices are those players that are on day-to-day status. You can go for a gamble and hope that they play but you never know. Players that just came back from an injury are probably not the best choice either as they won’t be in full shape. Because of these issues, I did not select my initial first choice Julius Jenkins (ALBA Berlin - 62 credits) as he has a minor injury since the game against Ludwigsburg during last week. I will however keep an eye on what he did today and then take a decision.
The injury list should in any case be your best friend when it comes to making your teams. It does not only help you to get rid of players that won’t play, but it will also give you advice on who are the players that eventually play more minutes (which means normally also more ranking points). To stay with the case of Julius Jenkins, his eventual injury would give most likely more minutes to Immanuel McElroy (ALBA Berlin - 49 credits) so that he may be a very interesting choice.
- Do not select your favorite players or Rookies
A typical error I made in the beginning and that I am still doing and hardly fighting to avoid it is to select players that you like because they play flashy or do things on the court that you like to see. In order to make a successful team, you have to be very neutral with your feelings and just go for the stat sheet. You can find stats of all the players in the different league websites or on pages like KeyHoops. So don’t do it like Theo Papaloukas on his Fantasy team as he selected himself (of course) or a multitude of former team mates or current Greek National team players. UPDATE: Theo has changed his team in between.
The goal of the game is to score as much Fantasy points as possible and mostly your favorite players don’t do so nor are the Rookies. Brandon Jennings (Roma - 59 credits) may be an extraordinary talent but I doubt that he will contribute a lot, at least not in the beginning of the season. For a similar value, you can find a Euroleague veteran like Carlos Cabezas (Unicaja - 56 credits) who is far less spectacular but I think that he will give you a lot more Fantasy points than the Roma rookie. However, this does not mean that I selected Carlos on my team.
- Select players that win games
It may sound small but the 10% bonus that a player gets on his production when the team wins is very important. As you only select players that score lots of Fantasy points, this bonus can be very big. Juan Carlos Navarro (FC Barcelona - 73 credits) scored big last night against the LA Lakers and the 10% bonus would have been worthier than the production of some rotation player of a losing team.
The way I chose is that I selected my high-value players from the winning teams because the chances to get the bonus on guys that produce a lot of Fantasy points is much higher. On the other hand, the smaller teams have more often players that go for bigger individual performances because their rosters are not as packed as the Panathinaikos or Olympiacos squads. Somebody like Ricardo Greer (SLUC Nancy - 67 credits) may be a very interesting choice as Nancy plays their opener at home against a jet-lagged FC Barcelona. And Ricardo Greer is a former Euroleague top performer with Strasbourg and he just comes from a 22pts (58%), 4rebs, 2asts and 6 provoked fouls effort in the French league.
- Cheap players stay cheap
Another error that you can avoid is to select too many “cheap” players. Players like Zygimantas Janavicius (Zalgiris Kaunas - 16 credits) or Sergio Llull (Real Madrid - 15 credits) may see lots of minutes in the beginning of the season because of the specific situations in their teams. However, this does not mean that they score a lot of Fantasy points first, and secondly, their value won’t move up that much because of the limitations in player price variations. So even if Llull plays well during Raul Lopez’ (Real Madrid - 48 credits) absence, you won’t get an interesting value back at the moment you have to take him out of your team when Lopez comes back.
Still, this does not mean that you can not gamble and take a player like this. If I remember right, there have always been bargains that made extraordinary seasons like Jordi Trias (FC Barcelona - 45 credits) two seasons ago or Nikola Pekovic (Panathinaikos - 94 credits) last year. So the goal is to find the steals of the season 2008-2009. And the best way to find some is to see who are the players that have had a particularly bad season last year because of minor injuries for example and that are now back in full force. Kostas Tsartsaris (Panathinaikos - 27 credits) may be a player to fulfill this role.
- Inside players are money in the bank
One of the main rules you should follow is to put most of your money into big men. With the European way to count assists, your guards won’t get John Stockton figures. However, a rebound is a rebound anywhere in the world. It is a lot easier to grab 4 rebounds in the Euroleague than to dish out 4 assists in an away game in Italy for example. Try to find guards that rebound well and shoot high percentages and put a lot of money into versatile power forwards. Felipe Reyes (Real Madrid - 74 credits) may look very expensive but he is always presents with lots of rebounds and high percentage shots.
- Do not overestimate my advice
Well, you still have to do your own choices. And I am not a reference in Fantasy Basketball as showed my two-thousand-something place last season. Anyhow, I try to give you my personal advices and nobody obliges you to follow them. But at least, if you see my team in the top rankings at the end of the season, you will know how I set it up.
Don’t forget though to join our Private BallinEurope League as you can win 2 entrance tickets for the Euroleague Final 4 in Berlin. The deadline for joining is on Wednesday and check here to see how this exactly works.
