NBA

3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Thursday 10/28/21

Brandon Gdula  —  @gdula13 Oct 28th, 2021
Steven Adams' shot volume is up with the Grizzlies. Is that enough to bet his points prop?

Player props can be useful in a variety of ways, from taking advantage of them straight up within the betting market 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 and simulations 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.

Royce O'Neale Over 5.5 Rebounds (-115)

Margins on player props between sportsbook odds and projections are rarely massive, which makes sense.

So a full unit -- especially when we're looking at single-digit props (i.e. not points numbers up in the teens or twenties) -- is noteworthy.

numberFire projects Royce O'Neale for 6.5 rebounds across a minutes projection of 31.4. O'Neale has had 6, 4, and 3 rebounds in his three games, 4.3 per game, but numberFire's model expects that to trend back up -- and fast.

The Utah Jazz do face a top-eight team by rebounding rate with the Houston Rockets, but the Jazz themselves are sixth.

Using numberFire's baseline expectation, my simulation model has O'Neale as 65.3% likely to get to 6 rebounds. That would suggest the over odds should be -188.

Tim Hardaway Jr. Under 18.5 Points (-104)

Tim Hardaway Jr. has been scoring well: 14, 25, and 16 points for 18.3 per game. But as you can see, that's just one of three games with at least 19 points, which he needs to get to the over on this prop.

Hardaway Jr. is projected for just 17.3 points tonight, and moreover, the Dallas Mavericks face a middling San Antonio Spurs defense. That doesn't lead to a big boost in per-minute scoring rates.

Hardaway Jr. also has had "just" 9, 16, and 12 field goal attempts this season. Even at a 66.2% effective field goal percentage (way up from his career rate of 51.7% entering this season), he's gone over just one time.

At the 17.3-point projection, Hardaway Jr. rates out as 57.0% likely to stay under 19 points.

Steven Adams Over 8.5 Points (+104)

While Steven Adams hasn't been a big-time scorer throughout most of his career, this prop seems too low.

Adams is getting a projection of 10.5 points, in line with his in-season average of 10.8 points.

Why the scoring surge (after he averaged just 7.6 points per game last season)?

Well, Adams has had 7, 9, 11, and 8 shot attempts this year, a role we didn't see for him with the New Orleans Pelicans a year ago (5.3 field goal attempts per game).

Notbaly, Adams' efficiency is even down (54.3% effective field goal percentage) from his career rate (59.1% entering this season), yet the shot volume makes up for it.

Golden State has allowed the second-most points per game to opposing centers to start the season.

Adams should be considered 64.5% likely to get to 9 points considering his baseline projection of 10.5.