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

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.

Kevon Looney Over 7.5 Rebounds (-118)

Our algorithm is pretty keen on Kevon Looney's props tonight. Our baseline projection for his rebounding number is 8.9, so the over is clearly the indication.

The Golden State Warriors are facing the Washington Wizards, who are 23rd in rebounding rate on the season at 48.8%. They also allow 15.6 boards per 48 minutes to opposing centers, around 107.6% of the NBA median.

Looney's full-season rate is 0.27 rebounds per minute, and we're projecting him for 32.1 minutes tonight. That rate over those projected minutes would net him 8.7 rebounds, close to his raw projected number via our model.

We could anticipate 9.3 rebounds if we adjusted the expected per-minute rate to reflect the positive matchup.

Further, Looney's rebounding rate ticks up to 0.29 per minute against bottom-10 rebounding teams, yet another indication to like the over.

As an added bonus, numberFire projects Looney for 3.5 assists. The over at 2.5 is listed at +102.

Coby White Under 16.5 Points (-116)

We're projecting Coby White for 15.0 points, a full 1.5 lower than his posted point prop, over 30.8 minutes.

The Chicago Bulls have a fine high-level matchup with the Cleveland Cavaliers, who rank 19th in defensive rating on the full season but 10th over the past 10 games.

However, Cleveland has been stout against opposing point guards, allowing 22.4 points per 48 minutes to the position, the second-lowest rate in the NBA.

White's scoring rate is 0.47 on the full season but dips to 0.40-points-per-minute against top-five point guard defenses (by points per minute allowed).

Even at the 0.47-points-per-minute rate, he'd be projected for just 14.5 points. Using the 0.40 number, he would be slotted in for 12.3.

De'Aaron Fox Over 7.5 Assists (-110)

The Minnesota Timberwolves allow a ton of assists (26.2 per 100 possessions, tied for third-most in the NBA), which speaks to how their defense is structured and how many points they give up per 100 (115.4, also third-most in the NBA).

That bodes well for De'Aaron Fox's assist prop. numberFire is projecting him for 7.7 assists over 37.9 minutes, which doesn't give us a ton of room on the over. That's a 0.20-assist-per-minute rate, on par with his full-season rate of 0.21.

Here's where things get spacier on the over.

Against teams that allow a top-10 rate of assists per 100 possessions, Fox sees his helper number bump up to 0.23 per minute. That sounds like a small boost, but over 37.9 minutes, that's the difference between 8.0 from his full-season rate and 8.7 at the elevated rate.

In a game with a 239.0-point over/under, we should like the over on Fox's assist prop.