It's been a really fun Turkish Airlines EuroLeague season and the best part comes now: the playoffs and Final Four! In less than a month, we will find one team celebrating on top of the podium as the 2022-23 EuroLeague champion. By then, we will also know who won the EuroLeague Fantasy Challenge, powered by Ardu Prime. Yes, the competition goes on until the final game of the season!
See also: Fantasy tips: It's playoff time!
To make things easier for all fantasy managers, unlimited trading is permitted before each round until the end of the season. Entire teams will be eliminated from one round to another, not to mention the 10 teams that are not in the competition anymore, so it was the only way forward. Remember: each playoff round brings a fantasy winner, and there will be very limited time to trade after certain rounds. It is truly do-or-die time in the EuroLeague Fantasy Challenge.
My team Gancedato scored 161.8 points in Round 34. It was not perfect, but I managed to weather the storm and remain in the top 2,000. I rank 1,831st overall despite dropping a few spots. With fewer players available, acing your team captain and choosing a winning coach will be 80% of your success in each playoff round. I am taking Georgios Bartzokas of Olympiacos Piraeus as head coach, just because his team ranked first in the regular season and is more likely to win at home than any other. That is my first choice. Next: superstars.
I think I can afford four superstars with the budget I have, especially since Bartzokas is an expensive coach (10.4 credits). I am picking Nikola Mirotic of FC Barcelona because I think he is the top candidate to be Round 1 MVP. I am also getting Sasha Vezenkov of Olympiacos, Wade Baldwin of Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv, and Mike James of AS Monaco. These are my superstars of choice. Since only Baldwin and James play on Tuesday, one of them will be my initial captain choice. Baldwin just extended his contract and should be full of confidence, so I am picking him.
I need a starting center and am going for Josh Nebo of Maccabi, as he has been really consistent lately. He won't have a monster game, but the double-digit PIR is almost guaranteed even against a really athletic opponent in Donta Hall. Finally, I need some bench players with an average cost of 6.0 or so. I am buying Isaiah Taylor of Zalgiris Kaunas because he is Zalgiris Kaunas's starting point guard, Aleksa Avramovic of Partizan because he has been on fire lately, his teammate James Nunnally because he had two good games against Real Madrid, Sertac Sanli of Barca because his playing style fits well against Zalgiris, and Anthony Randolph of Real because he has been seeing extra playing time at the '5' position without the injured Vincent Poirier.
You can take a look at my team here: