Round 21 of the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Regular Season is around the corner, and that gives our managers another chance to win in EuroLeague Fantasy Challenge powered by Ardu Prime.
The standings remain as balanced as they can be, with four teams ahead everyone else by a very narrow margin. Olympiacos Piraeus, Real Madrid, Fenerbahce Beko Istanbul and FC Barcelona have 13-7 records, and every game between these teams will be critical in the race to get to the playoffs, considering that 11th-ranked Valencia Basket (10-10) is just three wins behind the leaders. Round 21 brings not just a must-watch 'El Clásico' to the Spanish capital, but the second edition of the Serbian derby between Crvena Zvezda mts Belgrade and Partizan NIS Belgrade at the legendary Aleksandar Nikolic Hall. All rounds bring unique games!
As for my team Gancedato, I went all-in with Vasilije Micic of Anadolu Efes Istanbul and he didn't deliver, getting a PIR of 3 as team captain for just 6 fantasy points. Everything else was halfway decent, with a winning coach and a couple of theorical backup players, Uros Trifunovic of Partizan and Josep Puerto of Valencia, stepping up to save this round. Even with that, I ended up getting just 109.2 fantasy points, which made me drop a few spots in the standings. My goal was to make it into the top 3,000 this week, and I now rank 2,960th, so it must have been a very tough week for everyone, I guess.
Three trades are allowed before each round, and you can trade your head coach, too. I am letting go of mine from last week, Oded Kattash of Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv, and signing AS Monaco boss Sasa Obradovic instead. His team plays at home against EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, a very talented team not in its best moment right now. I am trading Mathias Lessort of Partizan because I have a different player in mind, his teammate Dante Exum because I expect the Serbian derby to be a very physical one in which any star can get into foul trouble, plus I had five players from either Partizan or Zvezda in Round 20. That's why I am also trading Ognjen Dobric of Zvezda.
I am going for two very classic Fantasy Challenge players. I am signing Walter Tavares of Real. He usually plays well against Barca but didn't have a high PIR in the last EuroLeague clásicos because of foul trouble. He should be ready to bounce back. I am also getting someone who has been the Fantasy Challenge king for over a decade, Nando De Colo of LDLC ASVEL Villeurbanne. If you follow the competition, you will notice that De Colo always plays well against his former teams, and ASVEL faces Fenerbahce. I have just enough credits left to buy last season's EuroLeague Rising Star, Barca playmaker Rokas Jokubaitis, who has been playing better lately.
You can take a look at my team here:
