Top 16, Week 4 Khryapa Replacement Operation

As confirmed by the club, CSKA Moscow forward Viktor Khryapa will be out for approximately one month, due to a dislocation on his index finger. Khryapa is expected to be back in March, which means that he will miss the rest of the Top 16.

from Euroleague.net

So far 2,239 teams have sold Khryapa since the little red cross has appeared next to his name...

What can we get for his 52.4 credits?

David Andersen is a little more expensive at 52.7 but quite a good bet, with solid minutes.

Also Mike Batiste (42.3) is back on form it seems.

And Stanko Barac (40.8) has the advantage of seing the world 15 cm higher than any other player in the Olympiakos squad...

Now, back in our Paleontologists...

Three faces to go this week are:

And the three new to come:

The reasons behind changing a team that did 178.3 last week while everyone plays against the same teams? Read on to find out:

• Sloukas (Diamantidis out) is the bet of the week. I read a very good analysis by BLOG.IN THE GAME, where you can see the amazing progress of Kostas from 4th PG, to one of the protagonists in the past few games. He has 41 ranking in 3 games in the top-16 (comparable to Diamantidis 44) and he sees plenty of minutes. Dimitris has not been himself this season. He has been very unstable. So will risk it by taking him out but gain 30 credits and a promising young PG. (another choice here could be Aaron Jackson of Bilbao, with a fantastic performance against Real over the weekend. He is low cost but risky. He did 0 against the same team for the Euroleague game. Also Real is not that bad defending their opponents PG with just 16% of the received points coming from the PG)
• McCaleb did a decent 16.5 last week. He has been performing consistantly against any defence, so I believe Malaga's 2nd worst defence in the league (see my Best Offence/Defence charts) will not be a problem for him again. 
• Spanoulis did his usual 20 ranking last Wednesday. His performances are very stable so he is another one that does not move from the team...
• Micov has been instrumental for Cantu. He sees 30+ minutes per game and has a more or less stable 15 rating. 
• Langford did 14 last week. He has an important role in the team, he sees 30-35 mins in every game since Farmar left, taking a lot of shots and scoring points. He is another keeper.
• Siskauskas (Bogdanovic out) strangled by the Green defence last week, his -1 performance means he has to go. He will be replaced by Siska, who did well last week and will probably see more of the ball with Khryapa out.
• Andersen knows when to give his best. He sees solid 20+ minutes, even after the return of Lavrinovic. I expect similar performance as last week (rating 16)
• Lorbek (Barac out) At 2.17, Stanko had an easy night against the short C's of Olympiakos. I believe he can do the same playing at home but I would like Mr Lorbek this week. He has been solid throughout this season, scoring assisted and non-assisted points alike, seeing a lot of the ball and with one of the bes 3pt percentage among all PF's (see this BLOG.IN THE GAME's great performance review)
• Krstic. Hands down the most consistent 20+ rating player this season. I did a lot to get him back last week. He is another keeper.
• Kirilenko. The point machine! He might have given "only" 20 last week but the week before he did 39... AK47 stays on the team.

After the changes the team looks like this: