This will probably be the most important article in my NBA stacking series because it’s the one where I take a look at the Golden State Warriors. What do we make of a team that is so good it regularly has assured victory by the end of the third quarter for stacking purposes? Given the price points associated with Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson, is there any profit to be gained by selecting more than one Warrior in your DFS lineup?
The first thing to consider is the nature of Golden State’s lineup. Joining the big three on the court is generally some combination of Bogut, Iguodala, Ezeli, and/or Rush. Three out of these four players have usage rates below 13% when playing alongside Curry, Klay, and Dray, though Ezeli’s does stay a bit higher – around 19.5%. When you start pairing the top options together, you are giving yourself exposure to a huge percentage of Golden State’s production. That may seem obvious, but there are many teams around the league where this is not the case.
Next, let’s look at what each player’s fantasy production actually consists of.
Curry (49.38 fpts/g)
Points: 60.1%
Assists: 19.4%
Thompson (28.59 fpts/g)
Points: 70.3%
Rebounds: 15.5%
Green (40.06 fpts/g)
Points: 37.5%
Rebounds: 27.9%
Assists: 27.7%
Looking at their scoring profiles, it seems like Steph and Klay could each potentially matchup well with Green, but maybe not with each other. Now, let’s see how the teammates have performed during each other’s biggest games in 2015-2016:
The pattern seems to be that two of the three crush their implied point total while the third either underperforms (from a DFS perspective) or doesn’t play at all. Klay has only missed two games so far this season, and each time he has been out, Draymond went for 60+. Steph and Klay each had one of their best games while the other player was out. Just by looking at this list of games, it seems like Steph-Draymond is the most likely combination to have a positive correlation.
One thing about a Steph-Klay stack: both players rank within the top 18 in the NBA this year in terms of points scored per minute. They both also play fewer minutes than most star players around the league, with Klay only averaging 32.9 minutes per game this season. If a Warriors game stays close or (God forbid) Golden State falls behind and has to comeback against someone, I could see these two going off in the same game. Also encouraging is the fact that 34.3% of Curry’s assists this season have gone to Klay. The one game this season where Steph and Klay both finished with around 60 fantasy points was a 12/8 contest against the Pacers, which was a game that came down to the wire, thanks to a 40-point fourth quarter by Indiana.
Of the big three, assists account for the largest percentage of total fantasy points for Draymond Green (27.7%). Of his assists, 63.3% go to either Klay or Steph. The game logs show that he is very capable of scoring 60+ when one of the other two is having a big night. When either Klay or Steph is out of the lineup for the Warriors, the odds go up even more.
Golden State’s centers are generally DFS-afterthoughts, but this may be a good position where you can add a cheap correlation to your lineup. In Bogut’s best game this season (11/14) and Ezeli’s two best games this season (12/18, 11/6), Curry’s fantasy point totals were 49.25, 69.25, 69.25.
Stacking two players from the same team who cost as much as the Warriors’ top players do always makes me a bit nervous even tournaments. But based on the above, the ceiling still seems plenty high when you use Draymond Green with Klay or Steph. Stacking all three in the same lineup didn’t really seem like a good idea at the beginning of this article and still doesn’t, however.
