Hello my dear friends. I am Dr.Fantasy. I've been sitting here in my lab, trying to analyse this new season of the Euroleague Fantasy Challenge and find a winning formula. I must admit I have failed in the latter, but I have come up with some very interesting conclusions.
First of all, I am assuming you have read the rules of the game in the EL page and are familiar with the basics, so let's go just through the mechanics of the game.
The average performance of a player, gives his price when multiplied by 4. For example if a player scores 17, 15, 23 and 25 index rating points (from now on IRP) in four games his average will be (17+15+23+25)= 80:4= 20. If you multiply the average 20 IRP with 4 the price of the player will be 80.
Now, in the beginning of the game there are some twists. If the above player or any player has a starting price of…let's say 32, it means that the estimation of the organisers is that he will have an average of 32:4=8 IRP.
What happens if in his first game he scores say 24 IRP? Then his average is 24 and his price should be 24×4=96. But! A player's value cannot rise more than 15% per week, which means that the specific player cannot be worth more than 32+15% of 32=36.8 credits after the first week and his 24 IRP performance.
Does that mean that his good performance of 24 IRP goes to the waste? Of course not. In order to remain idle, a player in general, needs to keep his average. In our case the player's average according to his price would be 36.8 divided by 4, equals 9.2 IRP in average. That means that in theory, our player would need to score another 9.2 IRP in the second game, or a total of 18.4 in the two first games in order to remain idle. But, our player already has 24 IRP from the first game, you will say. And here comes the fun part…
If we want to see how many IRP our player needs to remain idle you can just substract 24 IRP (the player's actual performance in the first game) from the ideal (in theory) of 18.4 IRP. Let's see that: 18.4-24=-5.6. That's it! Our player needs to score -5.6 IRP to remain idle.
But, we do not want our player to remain idle, do we? We want him to get the 15% maximum raise. In order to see how many IRP he would need to score to get the max raise we just do the same but we add 15% to his actual price. 36.8+15% of 36.8=42.32 credits. 42.32:4=10.58. 10.58×2=21.16 and finally 21.16-24=-2.84. Our player needs to score -2.84 IRP to get the maximum raise.
Now all this has just been an example to explain the game mechanics. I know of course that all this math, eventhough simple can be tiresome when applied to so many players. Luckily there is the marvelous website www.hoopsstats.com that offers all the prices and values that all the players need each week in order to remain idle, drop or raise the max. It also offers a usefull tool to make your weekly changes and many stats of the players and teams. You will be able to find the link on your left anytime.
Having explained the game's mechanics it is time to examine some kind of strategy.
First of all, many players try to spend as little as possible in the beginning in order to assemble a team where every player will get the 15% maximum raise. That is wrong! A team is able to gain only 15% in value each week. If your team costs say 200 credits it can only gain 30 credits in value. On the other hand if it costs 500 (the maximum in the beginning) , it can gain up to 75 credits in the first week, if all players get the 15% raise. It is simple: the more you spend, the more you get. I am not saying of course to spend all 500, but try not to be too cheap, it will lead you to fall way behind in credit-power and effectively out of competition right from the start.
Second of all do not spend lots of credits on positions other than the PFs and Cs. Every year it is the same: the most productive/expensive guys at the end are always the big men. Try to find some cheap, but stable PG who get's a lot of minutes in his team that will give you say 10 IRP in average and try to do the same with the SG-SF position, but with a bit more IRP.
In the first few weeks it is usefull to try and get as many extra credits as possible so you can buy the best possible players when things settle down and it is clear who's having a good season and who's not. Personally I try to do this for the first five weeks, but at the same time I try not to fall way behind competition either. The limit of three changes per week helps in that.
Since the limit is only three changes per week, try to plan ahead. See the schedule of your players' teams for the next 2-3 games. Make a plan which players you will change per week.
Do not pick players regardless the opponents they are facing. Last season CSKA was facing Panionios in Athens. Panionios had no player over 205cm and CSKA's Big men had a party in the paint. Examine the opponent of the player you're going to pick.
Keep an eye for domestic league performances. It may give you a hint to a player's current form and possible give you an edge.
Keep an eye on players injuries within a team. If all but one PG are injured for example, that PG will probably see increased playing time with a chance to score more IRP.
Very important is the foul prowness of every player. One may be huge once on court, but if he commits one foul after the other he will probably not see a lot of playtime, limiting his performance and yours aswell.
Do not neglect the 10% bonus your players get if their team wins. It may sound tiny if a player scores 15 IRP (1.5 credits), but if say your whole team scores 160 IRP, you get whole 16 points. That can make the difference, especially in the long run.
Talking of the long run, try to make a list of estimations on how each player is going to perform this season. What is the average IRP each player will have when the season is over. You can base it on previous EL seasons, on domestic league performances or even a hunch.
Don't make your changes right after each EL gameday. Wait for the weekend, check up domestic league performances and injuries. Try to make your changes as late as possible, but keep an eye on possible schedule changes aswell. It has happened in the past that a game was moved to Monday and a lot of Fantasy players did not get to make their weekly changes because they didn't know.
Don't forget that the average score of the teams that won the competition the last seasons was about 170-180 and not 240. One high weekly score will get you a ball. Many high, but lower weekly scores will get you a trip to Paris.
Good Luck and enjoy!
You can now start joining our private leagues! The first and main league is named "TalkBasket" and the password is: euroleague
You can enter as many as three of your teams in this league but after the end of Week 3 only your best team will be kept and the rest will be removed. The two winners of this league will win a special prize by TalkBasket.net, a Euroleague t-shirt and scarf.
You can also enter our 2nd league named "talkbasket.net" (password: tbleague) with unlimited teams.
