Charity is over!You will no longer find players that will be gaining the max regardless their performance (I am assuming everyone has Darjus, Walsh and Maric in their teams). Thus…time to change the strategy.
There are players that don't play to gain credits in the beginning. Those are either ruined, or way up high. Unless they are the type of players who analyse every game and are able to make all the right decisions. Those do not need any help anyway.
Check hoopsstats.com for prices, max gains and drops. You may also use the tool if you are having trouble deciding on your trades.
Now if you followed a credit strategy in the first 4 weeks, you should have teams of about 650-670 credits by now which allows you to assemble pretty good teams for the games to come.
The plan from now on is consistency: try to build a core of players for your team that will consistently perform good in the long run and that you won't need to change every week. How do that? Try to make a prediction of the top 10 players (top 5 for PGs) per position by the end of the season. Try to guess what their average index score will be at the end of the season. Do you have any of those players already? Keep 'em! Try to get as many of them as possible in the weeks to come. Try to guess which players are going to come up strong each week to cover the positions of players you don't trust. Playing time is a good factor to base these estimations upon.
I will try to make my lists of top players now.
PGs
Dimitris Diamantidis (83.9 credits): Of course he will be in the top 5 and he will be getting the bonus very often, but at almost 84 credits he might not be easy to get without making sacrifices. Maybe it's better to wait for a bad game and a small value drop?
Terrell McIntyre (72.6 credits): Another regular, but also pretty expensive for a PG. In a right balanced team he is a sure investement.
Ibby Jaaber (64.1 credits): Ok, you know by now that he is one of my favorite picks. Maybe because he scores high even if he seems to struggle. Maybe because he sees a lot of playing time. Maybe because Roma keeps winning. In any case I can easily picture him to be amongst the top 5 with an index rating of about 14-15 which is pretty good for a PG.
Bo McCalleb (59.5 credits): Another safe choice as he has the ball a lot in his hands and leads Partizan from PG. Partizan will not continue in the Top16 most likely though, so it's up to you.
Morris Finley (58 credits): He sees over 33' of action so far and of course it will continue that way. He has 16.5 points in average. It is safe to say that he will be a consistent choice for the long run.
*I excluded Ricky Rubio and Sergio Llull due to limited playtime and inexperience. I excluded Bojan Popovic due to recent bad performances, turnover-prowness and the rising star of Martynas Gecevicius who is "stealing" time at PG. They may all prove me wrong.
SG-SFs
Linas Kleiza (87.2 credits): I expect him to be the most consistent of his position. He sees the playing time, he can shoot threes, he can score near the basket, he grabs rebounds… A sure pick.
Pete Mickeal (92.4 credits): So far he's been great, a real go-to guy for Barca. He will most likely not end up to be as expensive as now, but he will be amongst the best. And he'll be getting the bonus often.
Matt Walsh (76 credits): At 76, still a catch. He's the Euroleague's current leading scorer with huge performances. He should end the season with an index rating of about 20.
Romain Sato (94.6 credits): I doubt that he will continue to be that good, but he will be in the top10.
Chuck Eidson (65.1 credits): He sees over 30' minutes in overloaded Maccabi. His quality is indisputable. He should be up there.
Je'Kel Foster (63 credits): He may have a short season as he plays for Oldenburg, but don't take anything away from him: even in the blowout against Real he score 16 points for an index rating of 10. The real test comes this week against Panathinaikos in Athens.
Taquan Dean (60.7 credits): He has been a consistent scorer for Unicaja so far and sees many minutes. I would expect him to finish the season with an index of about 16.
Alan Anderson (45.9 credits): He's had a rocky start, but I believe that he will eventually pick up his game as his quality is indisputable. In a typical Pini Gershon rotation he also sees a lot of minutes.
Igor Rakocevic (44.4 credits): Will he or will he not? I am guessing he will. He will be amongst the best by the end of the season if high-aiming Efes want to reach their goals.
Last spot is a tough one since as you have seen I have left out names like Langdon, Siskauskas, Woods, Navarro etc. I think I will leave them out anyway: I'll go with David Logan, the natural leader of Prokom and EL leader in minutes.
PF-Cs
Tiago Splitter (92.9 credits): He's too expensive right now, but he will be with the best, maybe even THE best (fantasy-wise…).
Ksistof Lavrinovic (92 credits): He's only got one game under his belt. It was a great one though. I think he will be pretty stable throughout the season.
Nikola Pekovic (78.3 credits): He will be the usual Pekovic: the go-to guy in Panathinaikos' paint that does however not see so many minutes. He's highly effective though, so no problem.
Darjus Lavrinovic (73.5 credits): He will not remain as high since Velickovic seems to be favored by Messina game by game, but he will be extremely solid. I am expecting a season of 18-19…with the usual bonuses of course.
Giannis Bouroussis (58.7 credits): The Bouroussis Express will have a season like the last one I think. In game 4 he showed us what he's capable off and he's playing like that in Greece too.
Aleks Maric (54.8 credits): The tree in Partizan's paint. Still inexperienced and foul-prown, yet highly effective, even unstoppable at times with a very good feel for rebounding.
Novica Velickovic (50.1 credits): He gained Messina's trust, has adjusted to the new environment and is now showing what a great player he will become. Many even call him the new Kukoc. In any case he is extremely clever on court, he can make all the right decision and this will be affecting his index as well.
Andre Hutson (62.7 credits): He's not great, but he's consistent. He will be in the top10 imo, but I doubt he will pull off any monster games.
My last two picks are kinda tricky as there is a bunch of guys that could finish up higher than them. I trust them however for different reasons. Erazem Lorbek for his quality and cause he should pick up his game sooner or later and Ali Traore cause since Curtis Borchardt got long-term injured, he's been the go-to guy in the paint for Asvel.
So there you have it. These are my lists/predictions. Try to make your own and act accordingly.
Now let's have a look at some players of the week, for various reasons this time.
Matt Walsh: He sprained his ankle over the weekend and missed the game against Siroki. It doesn't seem to be anything serious, but it remains uncertain if and how he will be able to play.
Brad Oleson: Injured indefinitely, thus:
Fernando San Emeterio: He will again see 30+ minutes probably. He is still very cheap.
Fenerbahce, Zalgiris frontlines: Asik, Savas, Erden vs Begic, Watson. Who will kill the other first is the question.
Vladimir Micov and Stanko Barac have an upgraded role in Caja Laboral. Decent picks if you need players to supplement your teams and only have but few credits. Both will be gaining the max with negative values in index rating.
Aleks Maric gains the max with 0.3 IRP. But he faces the frontline of Olympiacos…How will a foul-prown player cope against the Bouroussis Express who got fouled on 5 times in 12' last gameday?
Big men tend to party against Cibona. Will Ali Traore do the same?
Siena vs Barcelona. Time for the stars to shine in a derby? Underpriced Lorbek, Navarro will have to put on their best… If they don't I doubt they will ever this season.
Maccabi faces an "inferior" (on paper) opponent, at home. We all know old Pinhas however as well as how dangerous Maroussi can be. So the game can go either way, blowout or tight game, Anderson, Eidson, Wisniewski will see their 30+ minutes.
At CSKA they have realised already that if they want to go anywhere this season, their remaining stars will have to step up and lead the way on a regular basis. That means that the Langdon-Siskauskas-Khryapa tandem will be very active.
Real with an easy one, playing time for Llull, Velickovic and everybody is happy.
That about wraps it up from me this week. Have fun and enjoy 🙂
