3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Friday 10/29/21

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.

Harrison Barnes Under 7.5 Rebounds (-128)

The per-game average for Harrison Barnes' rebounding number (10.0) makes an under bet feel a little scary, yet numberFire's model projects Barnes for "just" 7.2 boards across 35.7 minutes tonight against the New Orleans Pelicans.

The Pels are a top-10 team by rebounding rate, so we could anticipate Barnes seeing a drop in per-minute boards himself. And due to general regression, we should expect that number to fall anyway.

Barnes is rebounding at a crazy high rate for him: 0.27 boards per minute this season. His rolling four-year average is just 0.16, so that's a 169% increase over Barnes' long-term rebounding rate.

Probably not the most sustainable.

We should anticipate the rebounds to tick down, starting tonight -- according to the model.

Reggie Jackson Over 3.5 Rebounds (+104)

So, we went after -128 odds for Barnes' under but can go to a plus-money rebounding prop and an over to help balance it out.

Reggie Jackson projects for 4.1 rebounds across 33.6 minutes tonight against the Portland Trail Blazers.

Jackson has met his four-year average in rebounding rate (0.11 per minute) this season to average 3.8 per contest.

That's also in line with his expected rate based on his rebounding chances (he should have 3.7 rebounds per game at a league-average conversion rate).

My simulation model, based on numberFire's baseline rebounding projection of 4.1, sees Jackson as 57.0% likely to get to 4 rebounds. That means we could bet the over up until -133 odds.

Jusuf Nurkic Over 10.5 Rebounds (-104)

This is a big prop to get to, but Jusuf Nurkic can do it. He has already averaged 11.0 rebounds per game, actually a tick down from the 11.2 expected rebounds per game he should have based on his rebounding chances.

Nurkic and the Blazers get a great rebounding matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers, who have gathered an outlierishly low 44.7% of available rebounds this season.

He fell shy of this prop total with 10 rebounds against the Clippers two games ago, but he played just 23.5 minutes. numberFire projects him for 29.0 minutes tonight.

Additionally, our base projection for Nurkic works out to 10.8 boards, and given his per-minute rebound chance rate and his projected minutes, he could actually be projected for 12.9 rebounds if he plays 29.0 minutes.

He's 53.5% likely, per my prop simulation model, to go over if I use numberFire's 10.8 rebound projection (suggesting -115 odds on the over) and 72.4% likely (-262) if I use the calculated rate based on his chances.

Either way, we can lean on the over in such a good rebounding matchup.