The Dotted Line Up: Madrid goes Fisching, Rimas goes home and Roberts eats Turkey.

By: Freaknick/@euro_adventures

D’Or Fischer, Power Forward/Center, Real Madrid (from Maccabi Electra)

Pretend you’re a man. (That might’ve been tougher on some of you than others.) Now pretend you’re a man whose life is more titillating than the Average Joe. Maybe the Average Juan Carlos or the Averae Sergey depending on where you’re reading from. You are the owner of a team, a basketball team, but it’s just any basketball team: it’s Real friggin’ Madrid. So you’re off to a rip-roaring start since signing Europe’s most dazzling young offensive guard in Sergio Llull and then you let Darjus Lavrinovic walk—more like a Quasimoto-like hunch and shuffle—and now you’ve outdone yourself by adding Sergio Rodriguez, long thought to be the world’s next White Chocolate and still a flashy point with superstar potential back in his home country. You’ve got a pair of great young bigs with Pablo Aguilar and Ante Tomic to go with super solid Felipe Reyes already, and then you decide to make one more move: you bring shotblocker extraordinaire and yam artist D’Or Fischer over from Israel because you were tired of watching him embarrass you in two Top 16 meetings last season (13.5 points on 86% (!!!) shooting, 5 rebounds, 2.5 blocks, 2.5 assists). You look down at your roster and see a team that should be able to up, down, run, gun, sling, shoot and all that other stuff Olympiacos did last season. And then you look at your coach and you see a well-respected Italian chap with a championship on his mind, even if it means cutting out some fun to get there. It’s time you and he had a talk. Ettore: you can have your fun and win it, too. Trust me, trust D’Or—Pini Gershon never would for more than a game at a time—and most importantly, trust your guys’ ability to share the ball and play all out on their own accord. You’ve always molded your teams to your agenda; letting your team’s talent mold you might be your toughest coaching challenge yet.

Rimantas Kaukenas, Small Forward, Montepaschi Siena (from Real Madrid)

Outside of a Pete Mickael or a Linas Kleiza—both of whom are happy where they are, thank you very much—finding one man to embody what was lost with Romain Sato is a toilsome task. Luckily the Euroleague, with its 10-man rotations and group mentality, is a perfect place to compile a duo or trio to replace one guy’s contributions. Despite his apparent decline in Madrid last season (10.3 PPG down from 14.8 in 2009 with, yup, Siena), Rimas still has some hoop left, and there’s no better place to find it than home.

And before the Lithuanians comment about Siena not being his ‘home,’ I know. I know…

Lawrence Roberts, Power Forward, Efes Pilsen (from Partizan)

If I had ignored Roberts’ play after the regular season were over and then saw this signing, it would certainly not be featured as highly on The Dotted Line Up as it is tonight. But once he warmed up to the Belgrade Black and found his place, thing started looking up for the former SEC Player of the Year. And boy, did things turn around in a hurry. In each phase from the regular season the quarterfinals, Lawrence improved his rebounding (his 7.8 overall was second in the entire Euroleague) and his 3-point shooting, the latter due to a better idea of Dusko’s system and knowing when it’s OK to pull the trigger. There’s no question that Partizan wouldn’t have made it to Paris without Roberts, who wins the Pick Up the Slack Award for the job he did while Maric was out for Week 10 of the regular season and then three of the Top 16 games. Most impressive was his domination of the vaunted Panathinaikos forntline in the Top 16 opener with a 12-10 double-double. With all the terrific moves they’re making, I’d almost be surprised not to see one of the Turkish teams in the Final Four next season. Both wouldn’t stun me.

Just as our original rankings were altered with the arrivals of Jankunas, McCalebb and Mikhail Torrance, we now try to find homes for our three relocated stars (and they are stars) in our newest Dotted Line Up below. As always, I shuffled everyone else up as well. Some of the lucky ones on the upswing were the big uglies Darjus Lavrinovic and Jeff Foote snd Prokom pointman Krzysztof Szubarga (why do I like him so much?) while Matt Nielsen apparently did something in the past three days to irritate me and fell accordingly.