3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Friday 4/30/21
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.
Russell Westbrook Under 12.5 Rebounds (-115)
Russell Westbrook is no stranger to racking up rebounds. He averages 11.2 per game on the season and has at least 13 rebounds in 24 of his 55 games (43.6%). That's what he needs to get to the over here.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, though, rank third in the NBA in rebounds per game allowed to opposing point guards, and they are 15th on the full season in overall rebounding rate. On Sunday against them, he cleaned up only 5 boards in 35.7 minutes.
Westbrook, in 18 games against teams in the middle-third of the NBA in rebounding rate, has averaged just 10.8 boards. He really picks on bottom-third rebounding teams, a sample in which he averages 12.5 boards per game.
Westbrook is projected for 11.6 rebounds tonight: higher than his full-season average but still not high enough to get to 13.0.
Kyrie Irving Under 2.5 Three-Pointers Made (-120)
Kyrie Irving is an offensive force without James Harden and Kevin Durant, which will be the case tonight.
That doesn't necessarily mean that he's a high-volume three-point shooter without them, however. In that split, we have 11 games. Irving averages 0.15 three-point attempts per minute and 1.1 three-point makes in such outings.
The Portland Trail Blazers are just NBA-average in allowing three-point attempts, so we can't knock Irving's three-point rate expectation -- but also shouldn't boost him, either.
Our model projects him for 35.4 minutes, and at that rate, he should rack up 5.3 attempts. He's shooting 38.7% from three, in line with his career average of 39.0%. At that rate, he's on pace to make -- barely -- 2.0 threes.
He's made three-plus triples in 20 of 46 games (43.5%), and this doesn't particularly seem like one where he'll do it.
Richaun Holmes Over 7.5 Rebounds (-114)
The model was initially going bonkers for Richaun Holmes' rebounding prop, projecting him for 9.8 boards against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Using his seasonal standard deviation in rebounds gathered and that as his average outcome, he should be 72.9% likely to hit the over on the 7.5 rebound line.
It's now down to 8.1, which still makes him 58.3% likely to hit the over using that same process.
The Lakers are 20th in rebounding rate over the past 15 games and 11th on the full season. Against middle-third rebounding teams, Holmes averages 0.35 boards per minute. At his projected minutes load (33.0), that would get him to 11.6 boards. Whew.
