NBA

3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Thursday 6/24/21

Brandon Gdula  —  @gdula13 Jun 24th, 2021
What impact does our model expect Chris Paul to have in his first game back?

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.

Chris Paul Over 8.5 Assists (-120)

The Phoenix Suns' star point guard is set to return tonight after missing the first two games of this series due to COVID-19 protocols.

Our model at numberFire projects Chris Paul to get to 9.4 assists over 36.5 minutes. That would work out to be 0.26 assists per minute. Paul, on the full season, has actually averaged 0.28. The difference there would be 10.2 assists as the baseline at his projected minutes rate.

Either way, Paul is a little undervalued, assuming he is to get to the minutes rate projected for him.

Using his 9.4 mark as a baseline for a simulation, Paul -- based on his usual assist variance -- should be 60.9% likely to hit the over and get to 9 assists.

Deandre Ayton Over 10.5 Rebounds (-120)

Deandre Ayton was the Game 2 hero with his game-winning alley-oop, but he also notched 14 tallies in the rebound column in that game, as well.

Ayton had 9 boards in the opener, giving him an average of 11.5 in the series (and 0.32 rebounds per minute).

That's still good but even a little lower than his usual output of 0.34. Across all games against the Clippers this season, Ayton has managed that 0.32 mark.

Giving him that rate over his projected minutes (34.4), we'd see Ayton have a baseline projection of 11.0.

numberFire's projections have him around there at 11.2, so that all checks out.

We'll even use the 11.0 baseline because it's lower. With that, he should be 57.5% likely to get to 11 boards, suggesting over odds of -135.

Jae Crowder Over 4.5 Rebounds (-115)

I know these are three Suns props and all overs, but that's where I'm seeing the most value based on numberFire's projections.

Jae Crowder was a hero himself in Game 2 with that inbounds pass, so I don't want to overlook that. Crowder has hauled in 6 and 4 boards, respectively, in this series, and our algorithm projects him for 5.3 across 32.4 minutes tonight.

Given that strong baseline, Crowder should be 61.2% likely to hit his over, suggesting the over odds should actually be -158.