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RS Round 1:
Monday, May 4th, 2026
BC Eos | 115 - 108 | Vindicta
(138830118)

A game that was a lot closer than expected to be on paper, so great fight, Jioshoo! It was a true point-by-point game, where no team was able to really dominate. Only towards the end of the 4th quarter I had reached a somewhat relevant lead to hold onto. As there was no obvious star player of the game, I was pleased to see al my starters bagging at least 16 points in the game. While I displayed worse shooting across the board compared to Vindicta, I was able to best them in rebounds and especially in the offensive board, which probably tipped the odds of this game to my favor. Great game, Jioshoo, and good luck for the next ones!

So, a short preview of the season based on the stats I have in hand (will be published by Wagner later).

Salary-wise, most teams are a lot closer than in the previous years. While we currently have 3 teams boasting a top-8 salary of over 600K - KKS (626K), LMS (628K) and EOS (613K) - it's gonna be interesting to see, if that will shift some of the dominance away from our serial champion VPO (418K), who lost 9,1% of their last season's salary. But as we know that salaries alone don't decide the winners, it's gonna be interesting all the way and alongside VPO, KKS and LMS, I would further tip RAJ (493K) and VIV (463K) to once again be some of the favorites go go far in the POs in the end of the season. Currently we have whole 10 teams with salaries between 271K and 425K, which makes the fights for the PO spots interesting in general.

In terms of roster ages, we have 5 teams, who got younger. Alongside of VPO (1,2 y younger), also FRE (0,9 y), HB (0,7 y), BCR (0,6 y) and ALA (0,1 y) have added some young blood to their top-8. While, HB still has the oldest top-8 on average (31,4 y), 3 further teams are now over 30 years of age, when considering the top-8 averages - WAG (30,4 y), ED (30,3 y) and LGM (30,1 y). On the other hand FRE continues to have the youngest top-8 with 23,5 y average age, further 3 teams have a top-8 average below 25 y - EOS (24,3 y), HGK (24,6 y) and ALA (24,9 y).

Altogether, it has been interesting to see, how all of the teams have been developing over the past seasons.

My player Dorion catched 18 rbds this afternoon in his game vs the VINDICTA squadron. We only lost by 4, which is a very goof performance for the club.
I hope the season will be as hopefull than this game ;)

- TRO R 5 missing

fixed

- TRO R 5 missing

fixed

Thank you Chucarro!

So, a short preview of the season based on the stats I have in hand (will be published by Wagner later).

[...]

Altogether, it has been interesting to see, how all of the teams have been developing over the past seasons.

Thank you for your Season 5 preview, LA-LennuK.! Yes, these traditional salary and age stats-comparisons, gathered/calculated and compiled by you every pre-season (since your 1st or 2nd Season in HGL?), are going to be released very soon.
I'll publish them on "main" HGL Thread, just like on Season 4.

Last edited by Wagner at 5/7/2026 2:06:56 AM

My player Dorion catched 18 rbds this afternoon in his game vs the VINDICTA squadron. We only lost by 4, which is a very goof performance for the club.
I hope the season will be as hopefull than this game ;)

In my opinion this was one of the most impressive performances as of late demars (especially in terms of pre-game expectations), 4 point loss against still totally undefeated VPO from any other than, say, top3-teams is an excellent achievement, and makes me wonder if this is going to be your best HGL Season ever!

VPO was able to force 17 turnovers on your squad (and that made your AST-TO ratio only 1 to 1), which is way more than usually, and maybe that was one of the deciding factors. We all have experienced VPO's suffocating defense though, so I'm (not) looking forward to breaking that number 17 in my RS meeting against VPO... ;P

This also makes me wonder if my only chance to get a W in our RS meeting might be if you'd decide Esnard really needs to be given a place in the spotlight (in the starting lineup)... ;D

Last edited by Wagner at 5/7/2026 2:26:19 AM

Player Stats recorded after Round 1

I have recorded every stat by every player for Round 1.

I think after each round (starting in Round 2), I will follow LennuK's post with an update on the current League Leaders (player averages) for a bit of fun. [..]


Interesting Observation

I might just add here that after entering all of the stats by all players in every game played in Round 1, it was interesting to see that only 3 new players played in Round 1 who did not play last season. Here is a brief analysis of those players:

The Debutants:

PLAYER (Team) / Age & Potential & Pos / Salary / Debut Performance
A.Askener (HB) / 20yr old HOF C / $16k salary / 42min, 2pts, 6reb, 4ast, 1stl, 1blk, Rating 7.0
J.Olsson (HB) / 22yr old MVP SG / $8k salary / 6min, 0pts, 0reb, 0ast, 0stl, 0blk, Rating 6.5
T.Noorhani (EOS) / 22yr old Superstar C / $130k / 18pts, 14reb, 2ast, 1stl, 2blk, Rating 14.5


Hardboll has wetted two young trainees and BC Eos has found instant success with his repurchase.



...League Leaders coming soon...

This is an excellent addition, it's going to be very interesting to follow it throughout the Season.
And if releasing it after each RS Round becomes too much to handle, please feel free to make adjustments to publishing schedule, for example publishing it only certain number of times per RS (to make it more manageable for you).
Having said that, I'm not trying to talk you out of this, totally opposite actually, as all these kind of stats are highly appreciated by me (and without a doubt, many other HGL managers as well).

As for you "Interesting observation", that really is interesting, and these sort/kind of things I also meant when I wrote in one post that please let us know of your ideas, even if you wouldn't have time/energy to implement them yourselves.
When you think of it a lot, you eventually may come up with these kind of interesting possibilities (such as "rookie/debutants watch/observation", etc.).

Last edited by Wagner at 5/7/2026 2:27:33 AM

In my opinion this was one of the most impressive performances as of late demars (especially in terms of pre-game expectations), 4 point loss against still totally undefeated VPO from any other than, say, top3-teams is an excellent achievement, and makes me wonder if this is going to be your best HGL Season ever!

I want to say it now, but I already wrote it at the end of last season: my reign is unfortunately over.
My team is rebuilding, and I won't win the HGL this year. So the defeat isn't a surprise.

The real miracle came last season, where I won despite a third-place salary, if I remember correctly.
This season is even worse in terms of salaries, as my team has declined, while others have improved.

My winning prediction is KKS, which literally surprised me more than any other team last season.

I'm happy to leave the victory to someone else: being the best team and not having to lose a single match puts a lot of pressure, even if it's just a game