Not sure why other players continue to way overpay for TicTacShacks players.
Sorry just lurking around trying to see how TTS is doing this season and read the boards. In business psychology, if you set the price higher along with an allure to the item being purchased, you are more likely to get someone to buy your product.
Really good USA players have always sold for more than they're worth. Why? In my mind, a couple reasons.
1) USA is seen around the world as the premier basketball country, and so players in this game from USA have that added allure to them, being from the top basketball country in the world.
2) Many USA managers try to create teams with only USA players on them to increase their merchandise. A lot of managers are willing to bend their budget a bit to get good USA players.
These two factors can inflate a buying price.
The other thing TTS did was set the starting price for his players high. It's a psychological trick played on many managers in this game.
Even though he did state his players were within their ETV, setting the price at the higher end or even above the ETV makes some managers think that this player is more in demand or even just better because his price is higher. There's a guy in my league who isn't necessarily good at this tactic, but he utilizes it a ton and is very patient with it. He buys prospects with high potentials at low costs because they are terrible, and turns around and sells them at almost 200%.
Sorry to jump in, but just wanted to shed some light on this topic in case you thought TTS was doing something shady, he's not and he is a great manager.