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We feel devotion
DataCenter
GASTONE
Devotion Again!
The moment all Euroleague Fantasy fans everywhere were waiting for has finally arrived, and Gastone’s team, faithful to its appointment, will keep you company for yet another season.
Published: 30/09/2025 00:09
After almost four months, the moment has finally come for “I feel Devotion” to be heard again on Europe’s best and most beautiful courts, and all of us to enter manager mode in our beloved Euroleague. The start of the 2025–2026 season begins earlier than ever and, without delays or unnecessary introductions, dives straight into the deep end, as it is combined with a double week and the pressure in the red from day one. This is European basketball — and that’s why we love it!
This year’s Euroleague Fantasy is a bit different, as the teams increased by two, reaching 20, with the result that the player pool is larger. Of course, this is also helped by the fact that rosters this year — especially at the traditional powerhouses — are overflowing with players who can play at any moment and are not there just to fill a 12-man list, something necessary to get through a season with so many games. This certainly makes our job a little more difficult, but also more interesting, as it requires more in-depth searching both to build our team and for the changes that will be made from round to round.
Enough with the prefaces, though — it’s time to get to the substance and build our team for the new season. The first player choice, I think, is self-evident, and every manager who respects himself will start his team from Sasha Vezenkov. Olympiacos’ ace is a ranking-production machine and that’s why he is also the most expensive player in the game, at 16 credits. This particular choice needs no further analysis.
The second player we will choose is in the Centers position and in theory is a quite value-for-money option. We’re talking about Moses Wright at 10.5 credits. The former Olympiacos big man is now at Zalgiris Kaunas, in an environment that seems to believe in him a lot, giving him the starting center spot, and from the friendlies and the first official games he looks to be repaying that trust by putting up very good numbers. The American also showed during his stint with the Reds that he is very efficient when he gets minutes, with some very good scores to his name with the Piraeus club — and what we expect from him this year is a takeoff.
We continue with a cheap player, since, especially at the start, according to our thinking we will need to give two spots to 4-credit players. One of them also has the greatest potential, and it’s none other than Alexandros Samodurov. Panathinaikos’ young forward comes off a very good EuroBasket, and Ataman holds him in high regard, as he has said many times. The Greens’ game against Bayern is suitable for him to get minutes, and we’ll see if he can provide our team with a score.
We continue with another cheap player — not at “Samo” levels, but a bit higher at 6.5 credits — Sergio De Larrea. Valencia’s 20-year-old guard is a “hot prospect” of Spanish basketball, with a very good presence in Pedro Martínez’s team friendlies, finishing all of them in double-digit ranking. This pick looks quite value for money at the start of the season, and that’s because two of Valencia’s guards, Montero and Badio, are injured, with the result that the young playmaker is finding plenty of minutes. What’s more, De Larrea was MVP of the Spanish Supercopa, with his team beating Real in the final, reinforcing our decision to pick him.
We close the first five players with one more — the third — in the forwards spot, and that will be Roman Sorkin. The Israeli comes off a very good season and a fantastic EuroBasket, which brought several NBA teams to his doorstep, but he remains at Maccabi this season as well, aiming to become one of its most important players. Sorkin, who will be playing a lot — if not exclusively — at the 5: if he corrects some silly fouls that knock him out of rhythm, he has the potential to become one of the best forwards in the game. His price is quite approachable, at 10.2 credits, and we hope he rockets it from the very first games.
So, six spots remain on our roster: 3 guards, 1 forward, 1 center, and the team coach, with 52.8 credits available. We continue by closing the forwards spots, bringing in Ercan Osmani at 6.5 credits. Here we have yet another value-for-money choice, as the Turk comes off an excellent EuroBasket — with the highlight being his astonishing performance against our National Team — and he also began his official duties with Efes by posting a 21 in the evaluation system in the first Turkish League game against Ufuk Sarica’s Erokspor.
We now move to the Guards spots, where there are bigger pending matters, since we’re looking for three players. One of them will be our second 4-credit guy, as we said above, so we get that out of the way quickly by bringing in Iftach Ziv of Hapoel Tel Aviv. So we continue with 42.3 credits for two guards, one center, and the coach.
We start with the coach. Here the options were specific and relatively expensive: Ataman (10 cr), Bartzokas (9.5), Saras (8.5 cr), and Spanoulis (8.5 cr). Panathinaikos vs Bayern, Olympiacos at Baskonia, Fenerbahce at home vs Paris, and Monaco at home vs Zalgiris are the clearest favorites this round. The two Greek teams might even be a notch more likely to win by double digits — but the “Greens” have had only two practices together and no notable preseason friendlies, while the “Reds” will face a different Baskonia than the dreadful team we saw in friendlies, as they were playing without several players — most notably Sedekerskis and Howard — who will play normally tomorrow. We’re not saying the games can go wrong — we consider that unlikely — but perhaps there’s a slip and the final point margin doesn’t cover us. On the other hand, Fenerbahce are the clear favorite against Paris. Even so, our final choice will be to go with Spanoulis, because there’s the prospect of keeping him for Round 2 as well, where Monaco play again at home against Dubai, while Fenerbahce have a difficult trip to Kaunas to face Zalgiris. This way, on Thursday we’ll have the ability to change four players, since we won’t have spent the coach slot.
We continue by closing the Centers spot, with Moses Wright’s partner being Dan Oturu at 10.3 credits! The former Efes big got paid handsomely to go to Hapoel, with a contract equal to Mathias Lessort’s at Panathinaikos — showing how much Dimitris Itoudis wanted him on his team. Despite the depth at center for the Greek coach’s team — with Motley, Odiasse, and, situationally, Caboclo on the roster — the American-Nigerian is clearly the first option, something that showed in preseason where, whenever he played, he put up impressive numbers, the last of which in the domestic Super Cup reached 30. Oturu took the risk of going to Israel knowing he would have a starring role, and we expect him to show that on the floor.
Now to the guards, where our team is completely bare, since so far we have only De Larrea and Ziv. Here there was major deliberation — the biggest sticking point in forming the roster. From Kendrick Nunn’s 15.6 credits down to Wade Baldwin’s 10.3 and Omari Moore’s 10, nothing made us say “this is it, we’re taking him with our eyes closed.” There was a thought to take Moore and Baldwin as a package, but both play on Wednesday and, if we factor in De Larrea, all our guards would be T2. That obviously doesn’t work, so the alternative was either Baldwin with Sterling Brown, or Kendrick Nunn with a guard under 8. We ended up going with last season’s MVP of the competition, as the Greens’ first game lends itself to a big performance from the American superstar — plus, in Round 1 it would be preferable to see how the others do and act accordingly afterwards.
So, after the safe choice of Nunn, we move to the second PG who will close out our roster. Obviously there was a dilemma here too — after all, fantasy without countless dilemmas doesn’t exist. The candidates are Matt Strazel (7.1 cr) of Monaco and Kosta Kontic (6.4 cr) of Dubai. The young Frenchman had Spanoulis’ full trust last year, putting in good performances and offering solid Fantasy scores in the second half of the competition — which also took him to the French National Team. But an injury left him out, costing him EuroBasket and a large part of France’s preseason. Now Strazel is fully back, having played in the first official games, though without posting anything eye-popping.
Kontic, on the other hand, in Dubai’s guard-heavy roster, you’d say would be complementary. In preseason, though, he showed exactly the opposite! Taking advantage of Golemac’s team absences, he was impressive in some friendlies, while in the VTB Super Cup he was terrific — posting 25 in the evaluation system against Zenit and 15 against Crvena Zvezda. Avramovic is still out due to injury, while McKinley Wright is currently listed as doubtful, leaving Kontic essentially as the team’s only PG, with Mason “swinging” to the 2 a bit more. With those facts, our choice will be the 24-year-old Serb, as combined with his price we think the risk is worth it.
With Gastone’s team now formed, we move to the last pending item: the Captain. With Sasha and Kendrick on the team, you understand it’s like flipping a coin for who gets the armband. Honestly, the decision here was very difficult as well, but we’ll go purely by the numbers, which have Sasha as the best “Fantasy” player, and we’ll give him the team’s C. With these choices we kept a “reserve” of 1.5 credits to correct our misses on Thursday. Have a great Fantasy season, everyone! Devotion.
This year’s Euroleague Fantasy is a bit different, as the teams increased by two, reaching 20, with the result that the player pool is larger. Of course, this is also helped by the fact that rosters this year — especially at the traditional powerhouses — are overflowing with players who can play at any moment and are not there just to fill a 12-man list, something necessary to get through a season with so many games. This certainly makes our job a little more difficult, but also more interesting, as it requires more in-depth searching both to build our team and for the changes that will be made from round to round.
Enough with the prefaces, though — it’s time to get to the substance and build our team for the new season. The first player choice, I think, is self-evident, and every manager who respects himself will start his team from Sasha Vezenkov. Olympiacos’ ace is a ranking-production machine and that’s why he is also the most expensive player in the game, at 16 credits. This particular choice needs no further analysis.
The second player we will choose is in the Centers position and in theory is a quite value-for-money option. We’re talking about Moses Wright at 10.5 credits. The former Olympiacos big man is now at Zalgiris Kaunas, in an environment that seems to believe in him a lot, giving him the starting center spot, and from the friendlies and the first official games he looks to be repaying that trust by putting up very good numbers. The American also showed during his stint with the Reds that he is very efficient when he gets minutes, with some very good scores to his name with the Piraeus club — and what we expect from him this year is a takeoff.
We continue with a cheap player, since, especially at the start, according to our thinking we will need to give two spots to 4-credit players. One of them also has the greatest potential, and it’s none other than Alexandros Samodurov. Panathinaikos’ young forward comes off a very good EuroBasket, and Ataman holds him in high regard, as he has said many times. The Greens’ game against Bayern is suitable for him to get minutes, and we’ll see if he can provide our team with a score.
We continue with another cheap player — not at “Samo” levels, but a bit higher at 6.5 credits — Sergio De Larrea. Valencia’s 20-year-old guard is a “hot prospect” of Spanish basketball, with a very good presence in Pedro Martínez’s team friendlies, finishing all of them in double-digit ranking. This pick looks quite value for money at the start of the season, and that’s because two of Valencia’s guards, Montero and Badio, are injured, with the result that the young playmaker is finding plenty of minutes. What’s more, De Larrea was MVP of the Spanish Supercopa, with his team beating Real in the final, reinforcing our decision to pick him.
We close the first five players with one more — the third — in the forwards spot, and that will be Roman Sorkin. The Israeli comes off a very good season and a fantastic EuroBasket, which brought several NBA teams to his doorstep, but he remains at Maccabi this season as well, aiming to become one of its most important players. Sorkin, who will be playing a lot — if not exclusively — at the 5: if he corrects some silly fouls that knock him out of rhythm, he has the potential to become one of the best forwards in the game. His price is quite approachable, at 10.2 credits, and we hope he rockets it from the very first games.
So, six spots remain on our roster: 3 guards, 1 forward, 1 center, and the team coach, with 52.8 credits available. We continue by closing the forwards spots, bringing in Ercan Osmani at 6.5 credits. Here we have yet another value-for-money choice, as the Turk comes off an excellent EuroBasket — with the highlight being his astonishing performance against our National Team — and he also began his official duties with Efes by posting a 21 in the evaluation system in the first Turkish League game against Ufuk Sarica’s Erokspor.
We now move to the Guards spots, where there are bigger pending matters, since we’re looking for three players. One of them will be our second 4-credit guy, as we said above, so we get that out of the way quickly by bringing in Iftach Ziv of Hapoel Tel Aviv. So we continue with 42.3 credits for two guards, one center, and the coach.
We start with the coach. Here the options were specific and relatively expensive: Ataman (10 cr), Bartzokas (9.5), Saras (8.5 cr), and Spanoulis (8.5 cr). Panathinaikos vs Bayern, Olympiacos at Baskonia, Fenerbahce at home vs Paris, and Monaco at home vs Zalgiris are the clearest favorites this round. The two Greek teams might even be a notch more likely to win by double digits — but the “Greens” have had only two practices together and no notable preseason friendlies, while the “Reds” will face a different Baskonia than the dreadful team we saw in friendlies, as they were playing without several players — most notably Sedekerskis and Howard — who will play normally tomorrow. We’re not saying the games can go wrong — we consider that unlikely — but perhaps there’s a slip and the final point margin doesn’t cover us. On the other hand, Fenerbahce are the clear favorite against Paris. Even so, our final choice will be to go with Spanoulis, because there’s the prospect of keeping him for Round 2 as well, where Monaco play again at home against Dubai, while Fenerbahce have a difficult trip to Kaunas to face Zalgiris. This way, on Thursday we’ll have the ability to change four players, since we won’t have spent the coach slot.
We continue by closing the Centers spot, with Moses Wright’s partner being Dan Oturu at 10.3 credits! The former Efes big got paid handsomely to go to Hapoel, with a contract equal to Mathias Lessort’s at Panathinaikos — showing how much Dimitris Itoudis wanted him on his team. Despite the depth at center for the Greek coach’s team — with Motley, Odiasse, and, situationally, Caboclo on the roster — the American-Nigerian is clearly the first option, something that showed in preseason where, whenever he played, he put up impressive numbers, the last of which in the domestic Super Cup reached 30. Oturu took the risk of going to Israel knowing he would have a starring role, and we expect him to show that on the floor.
Now to the guards, where our team is completely bare, since so far we have only De Larrea and Ziv. Here there was major deliberation — the biggest sticking point in forming the roster. From Kendrick Nunn’s 15.6 credits down to Wade Baldwin’s 10.3 and Omari Moore’s 10, nothing made us say “this is it, we’re taking him with our eyes closed.” There was a thought to take Moore and Baldwin as a package, but both play on Wednesday and, if we factor in De Larrea, all our guards would be T2. That obviously doesn’t work, so the alternative was either Baldwin with Sterling Brown, or Kendrick Nunn with a guard under 8. We ended up going with last season’s MVP of the competition, as the Greens’ first game lends itself to a big performance from the American superstar — plus, in Round 1 it would be preferable to see how the others do and act accordingly afterwards.
So, after the safe choice of Nunn, we move to the second PG who will close out our roster. Obviously there was a dilemma here too — after all, fantasy without countless dilemmas doesn’t exist. The candidates are Matt Strazel (7.1 cr) of Monaco and Kosta Kontic (6.4 cr) of Dubai. The young Frenchman had Spanoulis’ full trust last year, putting in good performances and offering solid Fantasy scores in the second half of the competition — which also took him to the French National Team. But an injury left him out, costing him EuroBasket and a large part of France’s preseason. Now Strazel is fully back, having played in the first official games, though without posting anything eye-popping.
Kontic, on the other hand, in Dubai’s guard-heavy roster, you’d say would be complementary. In preseason, though, he showed exactly the opposite! Taking advantage of Golemac’s team absences, he was impressive in some friendlies, while in the VTB Super Cup he was terrific — posting 25 in the evaluation system against Zenit and 15 against Crvena Zvezda. Avramovic is still out due to injury, while McKinley Wright is currently listed as doubtful, leaving Kontic essentially as the team’s only PG, with Mason “swinging” to the 2 a bit more. With those facts, our choice will be the 24-year-old Serb, as combined with his price we think the risk is worth it.
With Gastone’s team now formed, we move to the last pending item: the Captain. With Sasha and Kendrick on the team, you understand it’s like flipping a coin for who gets the armband. Honestly, the decision here was very difficult as well, but we’ll go purely by the numbers, which have Sasha as the best “Fantasy” player, and we’ll give him the team’s C. With these choices we kept a “reserve” of 1.5 credits to correct our misses on Thursday. Have a great Fantasy season, everyone! Devotion.
Roster
