Having completed an article looking at the Warriors’ stacking options last week, this seems like a good opportunity to check on their 2014-2015 NBA Finals opponents, the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs are finally healthy, having recently gotten Kyrie Irving and Iman Shumpert back, so the team is a bit different than it was back in October/November. Still, between this year and last year, we should have enough data to get an idea of who works well together and who doesn’t for DFS purposes on Cleveland’s roster.
As always, I like to start with a breakdown of which stats lead to fantasy production for the key parties involved. Here are the stats that lead to fantasy points for LeBron, Love, and Kyrie:
It comes as no big surprise, but after running a few queries on Statmuse, Love and Kyrie’s numbers appear more dependent on LeBron than the other way around. While LeBron’s production remained relatively flat regardless of whether or not the others were in the lineup, both Love’s and Irving’s production shoot way up when LeBron is out:
With Kyrie out to start the 2015-2016 season, we’ve gotten an extended look at how LeBron and Kevin Love play together. This season, here is how Love has fared during LeBron’s best games and vice versa:
On FanDuel, Kevin Love opened the 2014-2015 season at $10,000 and was still in the $10,000 range through mid-January last season. He had a hard time exceeding value at that price last season and he would have a hard time again this season if that’s where he was valued. Fortunately, his price has held relatively steady in the $7200-$8000 range this season, making it much easier for him to exceed value. He’s averaged around 34 fantasy points per game this season and was well above that total in two of James’ best games this year.
LeBron doesn’t seem to really get a boost from Love playing well, but he has been right around his implied point total in each of Love’s three best games this season. I think this sort of goes back to the idea of the other Cavs being more dependent on LeBron than Lebron is on his teammates. LeBron’s worst games this season have come in games where the Cavs were blown out; meanwhile, you can find examples of Love having bad games in contests where game script was not the issue.
From looking at their statistical profiles, Irving seems like the Cav least likely to have a high correlation with his teammates since such a large percentage of his fantasy production (63.9%) comes from scoring. He also likes to create his own offense – on 59% of the shots he made in 2014-2015, he had dribbled the ball three or more times prior to the shot (in this same category, LeBron checks in at 47% and Love at just 3%). Kyrie has also never had great assist numbers for a point guard. He’ll score the ball and he will do it on his own accord.
Irving basically killed Love last season when he was playing well, while LeBron continues to more or less do his own thing. When LeBron has a big fantasy game, he can flirt with a trouble-double; when Love has a big fantasy game, he’ll probably get you 15-20 rebounds; but when Kyrie has a big fantasy game, he is scoring the ball, period. Here are his point totals from the above listed games: 57 points vs the Spurs, 55 vs the Blazers, and 38 vs the Pistons. Kyrie can take over the game on offense and render Love an afterthought.
There is one other interesting correlation to note before we move on from Cleveland. While most players do better when a star is out (for example, Tristan Thompson averages more fantasy points when one of the Big Three is out), that is not the case for JR Smith. Here is his difference in average fantasy points scored when each teammate is out:
James out: -5.9
Love out: -2.8
Irving out: -4.3
As a relatively low-cost option, he may be a good player to stack with one of his teammates in GPPs since most DFS players will mistakenly think he has more value when one of the Big Three is out.
