MIES (Switzerland) - BasketNews and the Basketball Champions League, powered by Ameresco SUNEL, have officially partnered to launch the BCL Fantasy League. The league is hosted exclusively on BasketNews.
The league enables fans and fantasy freaks to build super teams and manage their roster like Sam Presti during free agency. If you get it right, there are monthly prizes to be won, with the grand prize being a trip to the BCL Final Four with full accommodation.
TWO WAYS TO PLAY
To keep the competition fierce and dynamic, the game features two distinct game modes:
Classic (Budget) Mode:
Build a winning roster while sticking to a strict budget, navigating player market values, injuries, and hot streaks. Managers can also use strategic wildcards to gain an edge over the competition.
Draft Mode:
Set up private leagues with friends and take turns picking players. Since each BCL star can only be selected once per league, every draft pick matters.
HOW TO JOIN
Ready to test your skills and compete for a trip to the Final Four? Sign up now and build your squad at fantasy.basketnews.com!
We'll get you started with some roster-building tips in this article, but the first thing you need to understand is that you have a €10,000,000 budget to assemble a team consisting of 10 players from three different positions:
4 guards
4 forwards
2 centers
The scoring system is based on a simple formula: a player's efficiency points (EFF), plus or minus 10% depending on whether his team wins or loses.
You can read the full rules here but let's get into some basic ideas to build your roster.
Captain material
We'll start you off with the most important decision of every week: your captain.
Every week, you can select a new captain, and that player scores 200% of his points. Whoever you pick, you want to be as confident as possible that they are going to haul in the EFF points and that their team is going to win their game.
Your captain is likely to be the player you also want to invest the largest chunk of your budget into. That's not to say you won't pick one of your lower-priced players for specific games, but if you're spending €1.5M on Willy Hernangomez, you should probably be looking to pick him as your captain.
Some great options for your captain this week are Willy Hernangomez, Ricky Rubio, Frank Bartley, Nicolas Laprovittola, Arturas Gudaitis, and Kendrick Perry.
Or, if you're looking for a riskier, differential pick, Cibona's Rickey McGill averaged 17 EFF last season, which ranked him in the top five in the BCL.
Expert picks
For our expert picks this week, we went all out and asked some of the biggest names in the BCL. To be more specific: Frank Bartley, Willy Hernangomez, Jack Kayil, Kendrick Perry, and Dyshawn Pierre.
To keep things simple, all of our experts except one picked Willy Hernangomez. That one was his teammate Kendrick Perry, who used his Unicaja pick to select... Well, himself.
And let's face it, there is plenty of logic behind Willy being the most selected player by our experts. He is the most expensive player in the game at €1.5M and also the second-most selected player on the market, with 34% of players putting him in their team.
Kay Bruhnke coming in as the most selected player at 37% may seem surprising, but when you take into account that forwards and centers tend to pick up EFF points in a less risky way, it starts to make more sense.
Although they have a lower volume of chances to score than guards, they also tend to shoot higher percentage shots closer to the basket, collect defensive rebounds, and turn the ball over less.
In Bruhnke's case, he's still fresh from putting up 17.8 EFF in Beijing at the FIBA Intercontinental Cup.
At just €1M, Bruhnke is also a great-value starting-five pick. And remember, if you don't pick him and he puts up big numbers, you are instantly playing catch up against 37% of the players in the game.
Enablers
Enablers are the guys who don't cost the earth but could rack up vital points to get you climbing the table. An enabler could also be a player like Adama Sanogo, who is listed as a forward but enables you to get a second center into your starting lineup.
If you need to get value for money on your bench or target those juicy points from your sixth man, you could do a lot worse than looking at Jordan Wright of BMA365 Bamberg Baskets for just €600K.
Ludde Hakanson of Asisa Joventut looks absurdly cheap at €650K, but, as with all guards on Spanish teams, just be aware of his likely minutes in each game. Always look out for how many minutes your picks have played at the weekend in their domestic leagues.
If you're feeling really brave, Madagascan forward Sitraka Raharimanantoanina of Cholet looks set to play good minutes and has the potential to rack up some points. For just €850K, you are mitigating the risk of picking a relatively unknown quantity and have even more to spend elsewhere.
My draft
I'm not going to give you my full roster and, from next week, we'll use this last section to give you a wildcard strategy every week. But seeing as this is Gameday 1, we decided to give you a template to work from:
Arturas Gudaitis (Rytas Vilnius)
Adama Sanogo (Hapoel Maoz Daniel Holon)
Kay Bruhnke (Rytas Vilnius)
Nico Laprovittola (Asisa Joventut)
Frank Bartley (AEK BC)*
*Captain.
The Basketball Champions League's columnists write on a wide range of topics relating to basketball that are of interest to them. The opinions they express are their own and in no way reflect those of FIBA or the Basketball Champions League.
The Basketball Champions League takes no responsibility and gives no guarantees, warranties or representations, implied or otherwise, for the content or accuracy of the content and opinion expressed in the above article.