Aftermath cigarettes

• The first Euroleague game day of the 2008/09 season is in the books - all the home teams won their games besides Avellino (Italy) who lost to Olympiacos, and SLUC Nancy (France) who got killed at home against FC Barcelona.

• Player that impressed me the most: Loren Woods. I know Will McDonald is the Euroleague MVP of week 1, but with all the big problems in Kaunas, money problems, Loren hitting people on the court and then facing Panthinaikos, Loren pulls off a game with 17 points and 16 rebounds in 33 minutes, which means 28 ranking points for Loren. Good job!

• Player that disappointed (me) the most: Ibrahim Jaaber - come on man: you’re on my Euroleague fantasy team! I chose you for your steals and defense last season…and this time not one steal, not one assist and not even one point in 18 minutes. Thanks for your -3 ranking.

• Euroleague TV comments: I watched at least 10 minutes of every game during the first gameday to find out if the pay-more-money-for-fewer-games thing works out. I have to say that the stream works really fine and I had no problems following the games even switching between them all the time. What I did not like is the resolution offered. The windows are clearly too small to really enjoy a game and by switching to full screen you can’t even read the score because of the bad resolution. Also new this year - as far as I remember - EL.tv stays online during halftime and offers a closeup of the bench during timeouts.

• Brandon Jennings watch: Evin Demirel talks about it: It’s obvious Jennings is learning to adjust to the European game. 9 points on 3-of-7 for threes and 0 assists - not sure if this is what European basketball is about. I am sure, though, that it won’t take too long for Brandon to show his real potential and we really are looking forward to this.

• The 31st overall draft pick for the Minnesota Timberwolves, Nikola Pekovic, in his first Euroleague game out of Serbia and for Panathinaikos: 14 points in 14 minutes in a 78-51 win against Zalgiris Kaunas in front of 12,000 visitors, according to Euroleague statistics.

• Speaking of Euroleague statistics: Marques Greens (Fenerbahce) played 30 minutes and had 5 points by making one two-pointer, one three-pointer and two free throws. Please tell me that this still would equal 7 points.

• Same game, same problem - Gasper Vidmar: 1-of-2 on free throws equals 3 points right?

• Josh Childress watch: 14 points, 8 rebounds in 25 minutes with a ranking of 22. Josh, learn to look at these ranking points - This is what Europe, especially Euroleague fantasy players, will judge you for. Here are the highlights.

• Finally our thoughts on the Euroleague TV commentators. Overall judge - funny and entertaining - with insightful comments in a true European/Italian way (in terms of pronunciation and passion). Really disappointing is the only guy who seems to be an American. His English might be perfect but the way he commentates a game made me fall asleep while Unicaja and Le Mans were actually playing a very interesting game. We know that he had problems with European names: problems with European names in the past, but I am sure, if you prepare a little bit for a game you can see that David Bluthenthal is not spelled David BLUMENthal, which in German means David Flowerthal, by the way.

Last-second choices for the NIKEiD Fantasy Challenge

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.

Euroleague: Partizan Belgrade, Serbia

For today’s preview on Partizan Belgrade, we asked our fervent reader, good friend and Partizan fan Stevan Veljovic to give his predictions. And he delivered us a more than great analysis of the current situation of the Serbian team. So enjoy.

Overall record prediction: 5-5

When we talk about Partizan Belgrade the first words may go something like this: “Partizan, yeah, great fans… no wait, really bigtime fans. With fans like this, they may be able to surprise this season again. Hmm, but they lost their best players, I am not sure. Eventually this time, Partizan is going to finish at the bottom.”

Well, I am sure 90% of you are having the same thoughts regarding Partizan’s Euroleage prospects this season. They come by no surprise and I experience them as a déjà vu. Since I do not possess Bobby Knight’s special techniques, I will deal with this topic in a more appropriate manner and gather and examine the facts that can be key in predicting Partizan’s EL achievement this season.
Recapitulating the transfer period, we cannot minimize the effect that the departures of three starting five players, namely Palacio, Kecman and Pekovic, will have on Partizan’s game. One of the most dominant Centers in the EL and his very solid teammate Kecman, who were accountable for Partizan’s rebound dominance (37 rpg, 1. in EL), switched the black and white jersey for Panathinaikos’ green one, as did the other major contributor and established leader; Milt Palacio followed the mercenary movement to Russia and signed for BC Khimky, although he stated, that he enjoyed every moment he spent in Belgrade.

The shattering truth of the ongoing tide in the cash box every other Balkan club shares, forced Partizan to stay quiet on the transfer market till the big players of European basketball finished their business to finally sign Ex-NBA player Stephane Lasme.
In my opinion he should NOT be considered as a Pekovic replacement, but together with Zarko Rakocevic aka ‘the Rock’ and the young Jan Vesely, should be treated as a part of a new game plan Dr. Vujosevic will develop this season.
Speaking of the game plan, it is obvious that the last years very effective ‘In & Out’ game cannot be established this season because of the lack of a dominant inside force. To exploit the strengths of the new poly-valent reinforcements, Partizan will play a high tempo offensive ball, combined with a iron curtain defense, since Rakocevic and Lasme are known as very athletic players and defensive stoppers.
Adding to this froncourt Aleksandar Rasic from Dynamo Moscow and the by now one year older TNT (Tripkovic, Novica Velickovic, Tepic) core, which I consider Partizan’s biggest reinforcement, we end up having the strongest defensive team in Partizan’s history. Sounds too huge? Well, it is an adventurous statement, but the very good coach, already known for his defensophile playing style has the fans backing and is looking to fulfill their expectations. After we spoke about the main changes in the roster, lets take a glimpse at the possible starting five:

PG Rasic
SG Tripkovic
SF Tepic
PF Velickovic
PF 2 Lasme

or should it look like this:

PG Tepic
SG Tripkovic
SF Velickovic
PF Lasme
PF2 Rakocevic

Nobody can give us a definite answer regarding the starting five or the rotation. The simple cause is, that the team has been completed on 29th of September and has not played one single match with the complete roster. In the absence of Lasme and the Serbian NT trio (Tepic, Tripkovic and Velickovic were main players for Serbia in the EC qualification.), Rakocevic, Rasic and Vitkovac stood out.
So a lot of sisyphos-work still is up to Vujosevic and his staff and I hope that this time he can roll the stone to the top. The, for the defense, so essential teamwork has to be built over night and it also remains a question who will step up in the offense and rise to become a leader for the very young team.
Velickovic showed some promising characteristics and stats during the national team campaign. Expect him to take over on the offensive end, although Partizan’s great strenght could be a balanced roster.

Hopes aside, the Top 16 Phase is the limit for Partizan this year but should nevertheless be considered a major achievement.

The picture in group D will be dominated by CSKA followed by Real and Efes Pilsen. The hard-fought for fourth place will be taken by Partizan leaving Milano and Panionios at the bottom.

CSKA Moscow should be considered the absolute favourite for the crown and can get contested only by TAU Ceramica.

Final Four participants: CSKA, Efes Pilsen, Olympiacos, Tau Ceramica

Euroleague winner: CSKA Moscow

written by Stevan Veljovic

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