The Rockets are going to be an interesting team to look at from a stacking perspective. Obviously, they have James Harden, one of the top scorers in NBA DFS, but are there any stacking options that you can pair with Harden on this team? As always, I like to start with a breakdown of the stats that lead to fantasy production for the key parties involved:
Although James Harden isn’t technically the Rockets’ point guard, he is certainly their primarily ball-handler. On NBA Wowy, you can see how many times a player’s baskets were assisted by each of his teammates and for almost every Rockets starter, James Harden has assisted on most of the scores.
I found Trevor Ariza’s assisted basket profile particularly interesting. Ariza averages two 3-pointers per game, which accounts for 52.6% of his scoring. Of Ariza’s made 3-pointers, 61% of them are assisted by James Harden.
Comparatively, Harden also assists the highest percentage of Dwight Howard’s made baskets, but the percentage is significantly lower (35.5%).
On the other hand, most of James Harden’s made field goals are unassisted. At the time of this writing, James has made 815 field goals and only 99 of them have been assisted (12%). It’s likely not a coincidence that he leads the NBA in isolation opportunities this season. Per stats.nba.com, James has accumulated 328 ISO possessions this game, which is OVER 100 MORE than Carmelo Anthony, who is currently in second place. This is just a crazy stat and it’s probably bad news for Harden’s stackability.
Next, I looked at games where Ariza’s shot was falling. Of the 12 times he has scored 30 or more fantasy points on DraftKings, Harden has exceeded his implied point total six times and missed it six other times. However, both of Harden’s best games this season (84.5 points against Portland, 74 points against Sacramento) have come in games where Ariza exceeded 30. While I wouldn’t use Harden and Ariza together in cash games, I think this supports using the two together in GPPs when the matchup is right. In each of those big games, Ariza sank four 3-pointers and Harden posted double digit assists.
To be honest, I was not expecting Dwight and Harden to have played well together in DFS. But when I looked at the game logs, Dwight has exceeded 50 DK points six times this year – and in those six games, Harden reached his implied point total once and exceeded it in each of the other five games.
I think this goes back to Harden’s ISO numbers – because of the way the Rockets’ offense is designed, James is not going to help out his teammates’ assist numbers. However, Dwight primarily needs rebounds to reach value in DFS. And let’s be honest – even when James is posting big numbers, he’s still going to miss a ton of shots. Of the six Dwight games where Harden also played well, James only shot better than 50% in one of them.
In closing, yes, you can stack James Harden with some of his teammates. Although I rarely stack teammates in cash games unless the price is right, I think there is certainly upside in GPPs. Trevor Ariza is primarily a 3-point shooter at this stage of his career and well over half of the threes that he makes are assisted by James Harden. Dwight is less dependent on scoring and assists than most of his teammates, which means that Harden’s ISO game does not hurt him as much. The two have posted several useful games together in 2015-2016 and I see no reason that can’t continue.
