17 October, 2023
05 May, 2024
Joan Sastre (LNTF)
06/11/2023
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BCL Fantasy tips: Marching forwards

MIES (Switzerland) - The eighth Basketball Champions League season brought along a new challenge in our official Fantasy game. Every Monday morning we will serve you up with tips on where to aim to reach the highest possible number of points that week.

Last weekend was all about the hard-working forwards earning valuable Fantasy points in domestic championships.

 

Sastre is amazing

Look at this stat line: 17 minutes, 9 points. Doesn't sound Fantasy-ish, right? But Joan Sastre was the second most efficient player in Lenovo Tenerife's weekend win over MoraBanc Andorra, because he went 3-of-3 from deep for those 9 points, picked up 3 rebounds, with an assist, a steal and drew a foul to give him 15 in efficiency.

Sastre has been the quiet man on that roster since day one, but if you have him in your Fantasy collection, this is the time of the year when you can expect him to be on the receiving end of all those Marcelinho Huertas' passes and basically keeping his stats neat and tidy with no turnovers, no shooting slumps, no foul trouble.

Wave your Flagg

Telekom Baskets Bonn are similarly built as Lenovo Tenerife, team-first, guard-heavy lineups. However, there's a hidden gem among the forwards over there, with Savion Flagg flying high.


The forward was one of the rare bright spots for the defending champs as they lost a game in the German Bundesliga on Sunday, putting up 16 points and 10 rebounds on the day.

Knowing Rio Breogan are in Bonn this week, it looks to be a suitable matchup for Flagg, where he can count on more playing time and his energy to push your Fantasy team to the top.

Honorable mentions

The matchup clause goes for Todd Withers this week as well. Cholet Basket are an athletic team, and when they arrive in Istanbul to meet Withers' Darussafaka Lassa, there will be a lot of space for forwards on both ends to collect Fantasy points.

Withers will feel good about his role after a rock solid performance over the weekend when he had 18 points on 6-of-8 shooting from beyond the arc. We've seen it happen with Turkish teams more than any others, whoever gets hot over the weekend usually manages to translate that kind of game to BCL environment a few days later.


Think Akwasi Yeboah of Galatasaray EKMAS - he was 2-of-8 from deep in all competitions prior to last weekend, then made 2-of-3 in the Turkish League, and just carried on with 7-of-8 makes against Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem in the BCL.

Withers' had huge roles in both of Dacka's BCL wins. In fact, he's currently shooting 7-of-10 from three for the season with that orange Wilson ball.

One more forward to think about this week: Nikos Chougkaz of Peristeri bwin. He is not exactly Joe Ragland or Nate Renfro, but when you look at Peristeri's boxscores, Chougkaz is somehow always near the top.

He had 10 points and 8 rebounds against Falco Vulcano Szombathely, then backed it up with 9 points, 5 rebounds and 15 in efficiency against Marousi over the weekend. Both times, he played just 22 minutes.

However, Peristeri are up against Unicaja in Malaga this week, arguably the toughest frontcourt of the entire BCL. Let's just call it a perfect test for the 23-year-old's efficiency gathering stats.