NBA

3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Friday 4/16/21

Brandon Gdula  —  @gdula13 Apr 16th, 2021
Robert Covington and the Blazers face a Spurs team that struggles on the glass. Which other props are intriguing for tonight?

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.

Jimmy Butler Over 6.5 Assists (-106)

numberFire's model anticipates Jimmy Butler to net 7.2 assists against the Minnesota Timberwolves, who allow the 7th-most assists per 100 possessions in the NBA.

They are allowing 105.2% of the league median rate on a per-possession basis, which should allow us to increase Butler's per-minute assist projection.

This season, Butler has accrued 0.21 assists per minute, and at his projected workload of 33.9 minutes, he should get to 7.2 without any adjustment to his rate -- the same raw projection our model has for him initially.

But if we bump up that rate accordingly, he trends up toward 7.5 assists, giving us some breathing room on the prop.

Robert Covington Over 6.5 Rebounds (-110)

Robert Covington and the Portland Trail Blazers are facing a subpar rebounding team tonight, the San Antonio Spurs. Naturally, that makes rebounding props appealing. numberFire's projections are predicting 7.3 rebounds for RoCo tonight.

San Antonio ranks 25th on the season in rebounding rate, collecting 48.3% of available rebounds. Over the past 15 games, they are down to 26th in the NBA at a 47.8% clip.

On a per-minute basis, Covington has secured 0.21 rebounds. numberFire is projecting him for 35.0 minutes, and at his season-long rate, that would get him to 7.4 rebounds, in line with the algorithm's baseline projection.

Covington hasn't shown any extensive splits against bottom-half rebounding teams and actually keeps a steady pace of 0.20 against top-10 rebounding teams this season. We should feel pretty solid with this number as a result.

Julius Randle Under 24.5 Points (-118)

Julius Randle and the New York Knicks are a game with a lowly 210.5-point over/under against the Dallas Mavericks, who rank 17th in defensive rating over the full season (111.8) but 9th over the past 15 games (109.8).

Randle's per-minute scoring rate of 0.62 points ticks down to 0.59 against top-10 defenses this season, which seems like a small decrease. However, at his projected minutes rate of 36.8, that's the difference between 22.8 points and 21.7 points -- a differential more than a full point and neither being over his posted over/under.

numberFire's algorithm is projecting Randle for somewhere in the middle of those two ranges: 22.3 points.

While, yes, he's gone over 24.5 points in three straight games at elevated minutes, he has averaged 7.3 free-throw makes per game (on 95.7% from the stripe), significantly higher than his full-season averages of 4.7 and 80.3%, respectively.