The Chicago Bulls are a team that you really have to pay attention to in DFS because when certain players are out, there are some pretty big ramifications. Just a few short seasons ago, it seemed like Derrick Rose was destined for superstardom, but today the only time I get excited about Rose is when he is confirmed out because that means it’s Butler time. To see how the Bulls’ players work together, let’s breakdown which stats lead to fantasy production for each of their key pieces:
As I alluded to before, the most obvious correlation to me is between Rose and Butler – and it’s a negative one. In the six games Derrick has missed this season, Butler is averaging SIX more field goal attempts and he sees a spike in his overall usage. When you setup a trend for Jimmy Butler and apply the “Projected Usage is Over 25” Filter, you can see that the results are overwhelmingly positive:
So we know we should use Butler when Rose is out, but this is an article about stacking. Are there any circumstances when we could use the two together? It turns out that Butler and Rose have both played considerably better when facing a faster opponent this season.
By applying the “PaceD” Filter and setting the filter to 0.5 or higher, we can then apply a team filter for the Bulls and see how Chicago has done when facing a team that plays at a faster pace. Pau Gasol does post a +1.4 here, but that is a little misleading – his overall Plus/Minus on the season is +4.49, so he has actually played worse in pace-up games. Butler and Rose, however, each have added significant value compared to their overall 2015-2016 Plus/Minus’s. If you’re going to use these two together, make sure they are playing in a track meet.
I have one more crazy stat about the Butler-Rose correlation before we move on. Which player do you think has assisted the highest number of Jimmy Butler’s field goals this season? Probably their point guard, Derrick Rose, right? Wrong…way wrong. Pau Gasol is close to tripling Rose in the category, per NBA Wowy:
And that brings me to the next pairing: Gasol and Butler. The below table tracks Butler’s fantasy performance in each of Pau’s best games during the 2015-2016 season.
As you can see, in Pau’s biggest games this year, Butler’s worst fantasy score was 29.3 points against Phoenix. Even in that game, he didn’t kill you, having only missed his projection by four points. On the other end, Jimmy posted a Plus/Minus in the double digits in half of Pau’s best games this season, including three 50-plus point games.
It helps that the players rack up assists by passing to each other and they also each see a significant usage bump when Derrick is out. Rose actually did play in three of the four best Jimmy-Pau games, however. Maybe the most interesting part of this is that Gasol and Butler are stackable, regardless of Rose’s status (although the ceiling is obviously higher without Derrick). By the way, if you exclude the Pistons-Bulls triple TO game from the list above, the highest score Rose posted in these same games was only around +3.
Finally, we arrive at Taj Gibson, who has been a direct beneficiary of Joakim Noah’s shoulder injury in mid-January. Joakim got hurt against the Mavericks, which was Game No. 39 for the Bulls. In Trends, using the “Game Number” Filter, we can see how Bulls players have performed since that time. In fact, the two top performers are Gibson and Gasol, who are the two players picking up minutes not only from Noah, but now from Mirotic as well.
I’m not so sure this will be a viable stack later on in the season. Both Taj and Pau generate over 30% of their fantasy points from rebounding, so they will cap each other’s upside. In the interim though, Taj’s price point is still too low. He has averaged 22.9 fantasy points per game since Noah got hurt, and we would expect someone who averages 22.9 fantasy points per game to cost around $6,000 on FanDuel, based on historical pricing. Taj is currently priced at $5,000, which means this stack works due to value alone.
In closing, there’s a lot you can do in DFS with the Bulls right now. Even with Rose in the lineup, Butler and Gasol have shown the ability to go off in the same game this season. On nights when one of these two will be a popular play, you can add differentiation to your lineup by rostering both, a move that many will probably not be willing to make due to perceived lack of upside.
