NBA

3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Tuesday 4/27/21

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.

Devonte' Graham Under 17.5 Points (-105)

Though there's a lot to like about Devonte' Graham from a daily fantasy standpoint on FanDuel at a low salary ($5,700), that doesn't guarantee he's going to pop off for 20 points.

In fact, he likely won't get to 18. Our algorithm has Graham projected for 16.4 points over 32.2 minutes against the Milwaukee Bucks, who rank eighth in adjusted defensive rating this season and sixth in defensive rating over the past 10 games.

Graham is averaging 0.47 points per minute this season overall and has been pretty resilient against top-12 defenses (0.50 points per minute), but that's still not high enough to get him to 18.0 points unless he's projected for 36.0 minutes (which he isn't).

The Bucks aren't a pushover on the perimeter, either, ranking league average in points allowed per 48 minutes to opposing shooting guards this season.

Khris Middleton Over 2.5 Made Threes (+130)

I love three-pointer props against the Charlotte Hornets because they allow the second-highest three-point attempt rate in the NBA and the most three-point attempts per game.

Overall, Charlotte allows three-point attempts at 116.5% of the NBA average, so we should anticipate Khris Middleton's three-point rate to go up this evening.

Middleton has attempted 0.15 threes per minute this year, and at his projected minutes load (33.1) and his three-point conversion rate (43.0%), he should take 5.8 threes and make 2.5. While that's not firmly on the over, we're getting +130 odds here when the data says it should be around even money.

I'm not saying we put stock into a one-game, six-shot sample, of course, but Middleton played close to these rates in a prior meeting with Charlotte this season (on January 30th). He went 4 of 6 from deep over 32.5 minutes.

Ricky Rubio Over 5.5 Assists (-105)

Ricky Rubio's baseline projection tonight, according to our model, is 6.2 assists, pretty comfortably allowing us to lean toward the over here on the 5.5 number at just -105.

Rubio's matchup with the Houston Rockets should let him rack up helpers with relative ease. Houston is 12th in assists allowed per game, which I don't usually like to look at, but it does show us a thing or two about how many baskets they allow per game and how frequently those are assisted. It can speak to overall defensive trends is what I'm getting at.

Plus, Houston ranks 25th in adjusted defensive rating and is 29th overall over the past 15 games. That should bode well for the Minnesota Timberwolves' basket count and Rubio's assist numbers.

Rubio's per-minute assist rate is 0.25 this season and 0.29 against bottom-10 defenses. Over his projected minutes load (just 25.6), that's the difference of 6.4 and 7.4 assists. Either way, they're both well over the 5.5 mark at which his prop is set.