NBL Dream Team: Round 5 Preview

Round four was the biggest round of the year so far, with four teams playing twice, and there were some huge dream team scores to be had.

 

Big Scorers

Round four saw five players score 90 points or more which led to a lot of decent scores for our teams.

It was Charles Carmouche who took the top score with 102 points. This was quite unexpected given that he’d scored a total of 24 points in his first three games but he stepped up in round four and showed genuine scoring talent and if he continues getting baskets at this clip he’ll be a worthy inclusion in your dream team.

AJ Ogilvy continued his impressive season with 98 points, which was matched by the hustle of Gary Ervin who had a bundle of steals, assists and rebounds to go with his baskets. Petrie was another who started the season slowly, but he stepped it up another notch with 5 blocked shots in his 94 points. And finally Alex Pledger clearly took offense to all the people trading him out for Ogilvy and put up 90 points.

Chris Goulding also deserves a mention as the top scorer from the teams playing only one match. His 60 points was great to watch and it outscored many of the popular players who had two matches.

 

Rookie Angst

Mitch Young bounced back nicely with a 22, which would have been disappointing for all those people who traded him out after his big negative score last week. Rookie players are generally unreliable when it comes to scoring so the principle is to hold them until you gain enough money to upgrade them properly (i.e. don’t trade them to another rookie) or until they have a handful of good games in a row and you can trade them out at their peak.

Tomlinson has been less and less effective each week as Ubaka has integrated into the Tigers lineup. I’ll be holding him for the time being and hoping that he plays big in this week’s double.

Vanderjagt has managed to have his score decrease each week and this round he posted -2 points. I had been thinking to trade him into my team but I’m pretty hesitant now based on this trend.

And if you took the punt on Auryn MacMillian after last round’s good match, his -6 would have been a disappointment. Hopefully he gets a positive score this week when the Tigers play a double.

 

Talking Trades

We’ve reached the point in the season where I pause and start thinking seriously about long term trade strategy. For the first few weeks there are a bunch of players who are on the cusp of decent price rises and you want to jump on to get that early infusion of money. But we’re a few weeks in now and this isn’t AFL so you don’t get 2 trades every week (unfortunately), you have to ration them carefully. 30 trades may seem like a lot at the start of the season but with 23 rounds and with trying to trade for double match weeks it’s amazing how quickly they go.

Planning a balanced team that holds some premiums from teams that have runs of double match weeks is the key. Melbourne starts its extended run of double matches this week, where they have 16 matches over 11 weeks.

 

Tigers Targets

I’m going to split the Tigers into tiers of player and will be looking at the premiums and potentials.

Leading the premiums is the inform Chris Goulding. Despite an ankle injury that had him missing round one he has delivered straight away and his 60 points from the weekend has his average at 44ppg. Worthington is proving to be super reliable and I think he’ll continue improving and thus is good value even at his current price. Lucas Walker has stepped up this season and is playing exceptionally well. There is talk that he’s carrying an injury but it certainly isn’t showing when he’s on court. Finally Scott Morrison has been quietly accumulating and is averaging 33ppg. The only catch with Morrison is that you would have to make a decision between putting him or Ogilvy on court, which is a tough one, so I’d consider investing the money elsewhere.

Ideally you would have two of those premium Tigers and plan to keep them for the next 11 weeks.

The Tigers with potential are led by Adam Ballinger. A slow start to the season has seen Ballinger’s price drop by over $38K making him a bargain if he can turn his form around. The main problem I see with Ballinger is that he is coming on court to pinch a few shots and then rotating out again meaning he is a big risk despite being such a talented player. Ayinde Ubaka has slowly improved each game as he learns how to mesh with the team and if he starts shooting accurately then he could jump in price. He’ll always get the second best defender if Goulding is on court, so the opportunity is there for him. If you already have Tomlinson then keep him, but I wouldn’t be trading him in based on his current form. And don’t trade in Auryn MacMillan unless you’re looking to downgrade a player like Jervis for cash and are prepared for MacMillan to be holding that bench spot for a lot of weeks.

 

Other Trade Targets

Carmouche is the perfect example of the incredible value to be had by identifying under-priced players as they turn their form around. With scores of -2, 2, 24 and then 102 (62 + 40) his 24 was the indicator that he might be finding form. Beal was another who has turned an early poor showing around. For both Carmouche and Beal I wasn’t convinced that they were on the right track but both showed they were with solid scores and a round four price rise of over $27K each. That’s a big boost if you grabbed them early.

But players that are about to boom are hard to spot. Ben Madgen will be a perfect target soon as his price has plummeted, however he had very similar scores to Carmouche leading into round four (-2, 2, and 18) but a round four return of just 24 (6 + 18) saw him drop in value by over $14K. Madgen will go big sometime in the next few weeks, it’s just deciding when. I’ll be waiting another few rounds before grabbing him. Stephen Weigh, Luke Schenscher, and Rhys Martin are all players who look like they’re on the verge of turning things around but I’ll be holding off for a little while still with all of them.

 

Trade Them Out

This is the part where things start to get really tricky. I started looking at who to trade out from my team and instantly looked at Kerron Johnson and Jarrid Frye. Both players have the potential to decrease in value over the coming weeks and the next double round for them both not until round 9. But that round 9 double is the dilemma. If I trade out both of them I will have no Adelaide or New Zealand players left in my team which means that I will have to trade at least one player from those teams back in prior to round 9. So ideally I’d keep Kerron as he will score more in the interim and be a better captain choice for then. But unfortunately, if I don’t trade him out I probably can’t afford Worthington. There is no easy solution here and for each person it comes down to making judgement calls and hopefully getting more right than you get wrong.

As for who you should consider trading out, look to your players from Adelaide, New Zealand, Sydney, and Wollongong. If they look like they’re going to go down in value and they’ve not been a reliable contributor then consider trading them out. Sydney and Wollongong in particular have long runs of single games which is leading me to look at ditching Brad Hill after his sub-par performance this round. I probably won’t do it as he’s still so cheap and I think he can have a good game against Cairns.

 

Captain Choice

Goulding probably gets the nod over Worthington simply because of his potential to go big. Unfortunately that same potential could also see him post a horrible score as he will always keep shooting even when he’s not on, but he looks to have form at the moment and could get triple digits. Worthington is the safe option if you want to be guaranteed a solid captain score. You can consider Lucas Walker or Scott Morrison if you don’t have Goulding or Worthington.

 

Best of luck to you all.

Tristan

Coach of the Statismathgicians