NBA

3 NBA Player Prop Bets to Target on Thursday 1/16/20

Brandon Gdula  —  @gdula13 Jan 16th, 2020
Tonight's five-game slate has a few juicy props for some lesser-known names. What looks good?

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.

While you can use those odds in fantasy, you can also utilize our fantasy projections and a variety of other tools to help make money on betting everyday player props.

For the purposes of this article, we are using the odds provided at FanDuel Sportsbook to pinpoint three spots where value can be had on a player's stat line, scoring, or even shot type.

Please note that betting lines and our game projections may change throughout the day after this article is published.

Omari Spellman, Over 5.5 Rebounds (-106)

Omari Spellman and the Golden State Warriors have a tough matchup with the Denver Nuggets tonight, but there looks to be value on his rebounding prop of 5.5.

The Nuggets are ninth in rebounding rate on the season but will be without Paul Millsap. With Millsap sidelined, their rebounding rate falls from 52.5% (which would be tied for first on the full season) to 48.5% (which would be 27th on the full season).

Spellman averages 0.27 rebounds per minute and is projected for 27.3 minutes tonight. At his usual rate, he'd notch 7.37 boards. On par with that, numberFire's projections peg Spellman for 7.6 boards, well over the posted prop of 5.5.

Patrick Beverley, Under 4.5 Assists (-106)

Patrick Beverley and the Los Angeles Clippers face an Orlando Magic team that can limit opposing offenses, as they rank fifth in defensive rating on the full season. It's worth noting that if we look at their splits against top-10 offenses and remove garbage time, the Magic are only 13th in defensive rating.

But the Clippers will be without Paul George. With George off the floor, Beverley owns a 17.2% assist rate and 6.3 assists per 100 possessions, via NBAWowy, and the Clippers rank 26th in the percentage of their two-point field goals that stem from assists.

With Orlando's 27th-ranked pace in terms of possessions per game and the Clippers slowing it down to 99.0 possessions per 48 minutes without George and with Kawhi Leonard, assist chances could evaporate for Beverley. Leonard also posts a 38.0% usage rate without George, via NBAWowy. Only 35.5% of Leonard's field goals are assisted, and he uses nearly 40% of the offensive looks. Beverley has a lot of paths to the under here, and we can throw in the under on his 1.5 three-pointer prop (-106), too.

numberFire projects him for only 3.6 assists.

Royce O'Neale, Over 1.5 Three-Pointers Made (+126)

Royce O'Neale isn't a star, but that doesn't matter. numberFire projects him for 3.0 three-pointers tonight against the New Orleans Pelicans.

O'Neale is projected for 30.0 minutes here. He has a three-point attempt rate of 62.3% and converts at a 44.5% rate from beyond the arc. O'Neale averages 3.6 three-point attempts per 36 minutes and converts 1.6 of them. That doesn't look like a lot of room for error, but the matchup is ripe for the chucking.

The Pelicans allow 89.0 shot attempts per game, ninth-most in the NBA, and 37.2 three-point attempts per game, fourth-most. The pace is up for the Utah Jazz, and over 30 minutes, O'Neale should see enough chances to hit a few from deep.

He's had 3.2 three-point attempts per game over the past 12, and four to five are in the cards for him given the matchup. At +126, this is a low-risk, under-the-radar prop to target.