There are many words to describe the off season moves the Skyliners made this summer: odd, strange, weird, atypical – and probably the best description of all is economical.

You don’t need to be an expert to recognize that most of the new signed players do not earn a lot of money. And they clearly do not make as much cash as their predecessors.

Murat Didin pointed out early this summer that money is not the key to success in general:

” If you start to analyze a team by their budget, then you don’t need to play. We will be a strong team and I feel we can belong to the upper places in the standings.”

Still many fans and experts doubted if Frankfurt could play really belong to the upper places.

At least on paper the new acquired americans – with the exception of Aubrey Reese –  looked really questionable:

Grayson Moyer? An ABA player from a division 2 college!

Seth Doliboa? A guy, who did not play any basketball from 2006-2008!

Quantez Robertson? Another rookie straight out of college

Qarrann Calhoun? College guy without any European experience

It is funny to see that Murat Didin obviously found a way to form these unknown players to a nice squad. Last season Didin had a really deep quality roster, but could not get out the most of this talented team. But this season with a lesser budget and many new and inexperienced players it looks like he is able to push the players to their optimum output. All question marks really seem to turn to exclamation marks!

The perfect example for this unexpected development is Grayson Moyer. Compared to his predecessors Keith Simmons, Konrad Wysocki and Ilian Evtimov the 23-year old sharpshooter looks like a clear downgrade. He lacks the explosiveness of Simmons, the versatility of Wysocki and the size of Ilian Evtimov. But Moyer seems to accept his role on the team a lot better than Wysocki and Evtimov and does whatever the coach wants him to do.

Moyer knows what he can and does not do any selfish nonsense. Moyer gives you a nice outside shot, tough defense and is able to pass the ball around nicely.

Seth Doliboa had been the topscorer of the Skyliners preseason, but had his troubles in the first few BBL games. He still needs to adapt to toughness in regular season games, but Doliboa already is able to produce numbers that are quite similar to those Ilian Evtimov produced in his first year in Frankfurt. Just like his team mate Moyer the 28-year old Doliboa does not tend to force shots. In Frankfurt’s home loss against Bonn he was shut down by elite defender Vincent Yarbrough, but found other ways to contribute and did not force anything.

Just days before the season started the Skyliners surprised everyone by signing another guard. Quantez Robertson had a really impressive start into his rookie season in Europe. The 24-year old really stepped up and filled the gap when Jimmy McKinney was out with an injury. His versatility helps the team a lot as Robertson is able to play all 3 small positions. His quickness and explosiveness makes him a perfect sixth man. As Murat Didin said it Quantez plays like a veteran and you would not think that he is a rookie. One should not be surprised to see his name in the Top 5 in the category of steals per game.

Qarrann Calhoun is the only new player who still remains to be a question mark. After getting injured late in the preseason Calhoun is still recovering. The athletic forward needs to be patient and work hard to find his place on the team.

Moyer, Doliboa and Robertson turned out to be nice picks for Frankfurt.

But definitely the difference-maker for the Skyliners is Aubrey Reese. The 31-year old fills many gaps and gives the team a lot it was missing in the past. Following the Skyliners ever since their founding in 1999 I can’t remember a player penetrating that hard to the basket like Reese does. He is not much bigger than Pascal Roller, but weights about 20 Kilos more and is tough to stop for any opponent player. Reese also gives the team another quality with his vocal leadership, a quality the Skyliners were missing ever since the departure of Tyrone Ellis.

With a 6-3 start the Skyliners look like a play-off team right now and Hagen’s Chase Griffin even thinks that they could be more than that:

“At this point, Frankfurt is a top three team. The sky is the limit for them”, stressed Chase Griffin.

Well, Frankfurt had blow-out wins against losing teams like Gießen, Hagen and Tübingen. Last season it was quite similar. Against mediocre teams Frankfurt celebrated huge wins. Also Tübingen’s Jermaine Anderson praised Frankfurt after a big win in 2008 and even thought they could be contender.

This season against Oldenburg and Bonn the Skyliners fought hard but in the end could not get a win. Their close win against Bamberg looks nice on paper. But Bamberg is obviously troubled at the moment and struggles with a 2-5 start.

Frankfurt’s next opponents are the Artland Dragons and Alba Berlin and it will be quite revealing to see if Frankfurt can win against top teams.

Last year’s expensive and deep team was clearly underachieving, but this year’s rather low-budget squad looks like a surprise team that maybe could have a deep run into the post season. But still it is too early to talk about contenders. If it really takes about 10-15 games to judge  the strength of the teams one can definitely say that with 9 games played this new Frankfurt team exceeds all expectations.

In general it would be interesting to see last season’s team to play against the 2009/2010 squad. If it’s true that one hand always beats five strong fingers the winner should be the new team!