3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Wednesday 4/14/21

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways, from taking advantage of them straight up (to the tune of cold hard cash) to measuring a player's potential to produce in daily fantasy basketball. Here we'll focus on utilizing our projections and a slew of other tools to help make money betting player props.

For this article, we are using the odds provided at NBA Finals odds to pinpoint spots where value can be had tonight.

Please note that betting lines and our player projections may change throughout the day after this article is published.

DeMar DeRozan Over 4.5 Rebounds (+114)

The Toronto Raptors have been getting pounded on the glass lately, and that points me to an over at plus money for DeMar DeRozan's rebounding prop.

DeRozan averages 0.13 rebounds per minute (which would get him to 4.4 over his projected 34.1 minutes, per our algorithm), but when we factor in the matchup, we should expect a rate boost.

Toronto is allowing opponents to secure 52.9% of rebounds, the fourth-highest rate in the NBA, over the past 10 games. They're also allowing 7.0 rebounds per game to opposing shooting guards over their past 10, as well (which works out to 0.16 per minute, second-highest in that split).

DeRozan's rebounding rate bumps to 0.15 per minute against bottom-10 rebounding teams this season (which would get him to 5.1 boards at his projected minutes workload), and he starts trending toward 5.5 boards when further accounting for how bad the Raptors have been lately.

Nikola Vucevic Over 22.5 Points (-104)

Nikola Vucevic is drawing his former team tonight, and I won't lie, that alone has to inflate his projected numbers a tad, right?

Even without the subjective bump, we can make an easy case for the over.

The Orlando Magic rank 25th in defensive rating since the trade deadline and also allow an above-average rate of shots from within five feet in that span.

Vucevic is averaging 21.8 points as a Chicago Bull, which nets out to a nice 0.69-point-per-minute rate. His rate against bottom-10 defenses ramps up to 0.74. numberFire is projecting him for 33.5 minutes, so that would get him to 24.8 points.

Our algorithm overall is projecting him for 23.9 points, so by just about any measure, Vucevic is primed to score well on his longtime team.

Nikola Jokic Over 1.5 Three-Pointers Made (+134)

There are a few outlier teams in terms of allowing three-point attempts, and Nikola Jokic faces one of them tonight, the Miami Heat.

Miami is the outlier, as they are seeing 46.5% of opposing field goal attempts to come from behind the arc. The NBA average is 39.2%. So that's 118.6% the NBA average. Whew.

If we adjust Jokic's per-minute three-point attempt rate (0.10) for the matchup and account for his 35.6 projected minutes and his field goal percentage (41.8%), he should be up around 1.8 projected three-point makes.

At such plus money, that's quite appealing for a player prop.