Derrick Alston Jr.

Virtus Bologna

Power forward 207 cm USA 29 yr #21
0.7 Predictability score 23 games started, 2025-26
Season 2025-26 season backtest

Projected vs actual profile

Season averages, axes scaled to an elite Euroleague starter level.

Model vs naive baseline

The naive forecaster projects the average of season and last-5 games. We publish the comparison for every stat, whichever side wins.

StatSkillAvgModel MAENaive MAE
Points -3.3% 11.3 5.34 5.01
Rebounds +0.5% 2.96 1.21 1.17
Assists -1.2% 1.09 0.84 0.81
3PM -11.1% 1.91 1.17 1.05
PIR +4.9% 9.91 6.31 6.31

Skill = CRPS improvement of the full probability distribution over a naive rolling average, per game, measured on the same games. The dotted stats (points, rebounds, PIR) drive the headline score; assists and threes are shown for transparency.

Game by game: predicted vs actual

The shaded band is the model's 10th to 90th percentile before tip-off. Dots are what he actually did.

Every game he started

DateOpponent PointsReboundsAssists3PMPIR
2026-04-03 vs Valencia Basket 10 (10.3) 2 (3.2) 0 (2.0) 1 (1.5) 6 (10.8)
2026-03-31 vs Paris Basketball 8 (11.1) 5 (3.1) 2 (1.7) 0 (1.7) 5 (12.6)
2026-03-26 @ Olimpia Milano 10 (8.8) 3 (2.3) 1 (1.5) 2 (1.6) 8 (9.0)
2026-03-19 @ Hapoel Tel Aviv 24 (8.1) 2 (2.5) 4 (1.6) 2 (1.5) 25 (9.0)
2026-03-05 @ Real Madrid 11 (8.5) 3 (2.5) 1 (1.2) 3 (1.5) 11 (8.5)
2026-02-04 vs ASVEL Villeurbanne 7 (10.2) 4 (3.1) 1 (1.4) 1 (1.6) 4 (10.6)
2026-01-30 @ AS Monaco 19 (9.6) 3 (2.8) 2 (1.6) 4 (1.5) 17 (9.2)
2026-01-23 vs Crvena Zvezda Belgrade 18 (9.9) 3 (2.9) 2 (1.4) 3 (1.5) 18 (10.7)
2026-01-21 vs Fenerbahce Istanbul 14 (8.8) 4 (3.1) 1 (1.2) 1 (1.3) 12 (9.0)
2026-01-15 @ Dubai Basketball 12 (8.5) 1 (3.0) 1 (1.2) 2 (1.4) 3 (9.1)
2026-01-08 @ Panathinaikos Athens 0 (9.4) 2 (3.3) 1 (1.5) 0 (1.6) -5 (10.3)
2026-01-06 vs Zalgiris Kaunas 20 (8.6) 6 (2.5) 2 (1.3) 2 (1.5) 19 (9.9)
2026-01-02 vs Olimpia Milano 20 (8.2) 3 (3.1) 1 (1.2) 4 (1.3) 17 (9.5)
2025-12-26 vs Olympiacos Piraeus 8 (8.1) 2 (3.0) 0 (1.4) 2 (1.5) 6 (8.8)
2025-12-19 @ Crvena Zvezda Belgrade 13 (7.1) 2 (3.1) 1 (1.4) 2 (1.3) 12 (7.9)
2025-12-17 @ Partizan Belgrade 14 (6.9) 3 (2.9) 2 (1.2) 4 (1.0) 21 (7.3)
2025-12-12 vs Hapoel Tel Aviv 11 (6.2) 3 (2.4) 0 (1.3) 2 (1.3) 11 (9.5)
2025-12-05 vs Dubai Basketball 11 (6.7) 3 (2.2) 0 (1.2) 3 (1.0) 11 (9.1)
2025-11-25 @ Fenerbahce Istanbul 6 (5.8) 4 (2.3) 1 (1.0) 2 (0.8) 6 (7.3)
2025-11-21 vs Maccabi Tel Aviv 15 (5.9) 7 (2.0) 2 (1.0) 3 (0.7) 18 (6.8)
2025-11-14 @ FC Barcelona 2 (4.7) 2 (2.0) 0 (1.1) 0 (0.6) 2 (5.6)
2025-11-06 @ Baskonia Vitoria-Gasteiz 5 (5.6) 1 (2.4) 0 (1.4) 1 (0.6) 0 (5.9)
2025-10-28 @ Zalgiris Kaunas 2 (5.0) 0 (2.2) 0 (2.1) 0 (0.5) 1 (5.5)

Bold = actual, in brackets = model projection before the game. Only games he started are shown: our projections assume the starting five, so a scratch is not a model miss.

About this data

The 2025-26 season is a holdout backtest: the models were trained on Euroleague seasons up to 2022-23 and tuned on 2023-24, then predicted every 2025-26 game. The season is fully out-of-sample, with one caveat: historical features use realized lineups, while live production predicts from the expected starting five, so live accuracy can run marginally lower. PIR is the Euroleague's own performance index rating, the competition's summary number for a player's game, and the only projected stat here that can be negative. Projections and full distributions for today's games are on the Euroleague player projections page, team rating profiles on Euroleague team profiles, and the methodology behind every model on the methodology page.