Wednesday night is the first full slate of NBA basketball. It’s our first real opportunity to get aggressive from an odds perspective and play around with alternate lines (points, rebounds assists, 3PM). The number of player props I provide will vary, as I do not want to force any plays or put out too much. Early in the season coaches go deep into their bench to find out which rotations work best. It’s also a great opportunity to find value in players at new locations or rookies with low lines. All plays are 0.5U.
Let’s look at a few props that fit this mold.
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Line available at DraftKings Sportsbook at the time of publishing
Haliburton is one of my favorite players in the league that is not a household name. He is finally getting his own team even though it is a tanking one. Malcolm Brogdon is no longer on the Pacers to eat into his USG and Haliburton averaged 17 ppg after the all-star break last season. Without Brogdon, Haliburton averaged 18.6 ppg as a Pacer and hit this line in 13 of 18 games (72%). Haliburton should make a big jump this season into an all-star caliber player.
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Line available at Caesars Sportsbook at time of publishing
Rookies are tough to bet on; you are going off of preseason stats and assumptions. However, if the lines are attractive enough then you can catch the books by surprise. The #1 pick is slated to start at PF for the Magic. He is an efficient scorer around the rim and the Pistons couldn’t be a better team against which to start his career.
We can safely assume Banchero will see 12 to 14 FGA and Bojan Bogdanovic does not have the physicality to match him in post play. I actually believe Banchero can average 20 ppg as a rookie just based on how NBA-ready he was coming out from Duke. He has an NBA body, showed the ability to take his man off the dribble, move well without the ball, and a post game reminiscent of David Lee. I don’t think we will see his line this low for long.
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Line available at DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publishing
Ivey put up double-digit scoring performances in all 4 preseason games. I care less about the stat lines and more about how aggressive he was on the offensive end. He had double-digit shot attempts in 3 of the 4 games. In the 3rd preseason game — which is the dress rehearsal for the regular season — he logged 34 minutes and had 9 FT attempts. Players who attack the basket and get to the line will garner easy points. I love this at 10.5. and if I wasn’t so hard on myself with my 0.5U rule this would be one that gets 1U. However, let’s practice discipline early.
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Line available at DraftKings Sportsbook at the time of publishing
We find another tanking team on our radar. The Thunder will likely be in the Victor Wembanyama sweepstakes, but there will be nights that Josh Giddey wins people a lot of money — whether that will be with a triple-double or from 3 is yet to be seen. Giddey shot a putrid 26% from 3 in 2021-22 and spent the entire offseason with the best shooting coach in the league, Chip Engelland. Giddey by all accounts worked 2 to 3 times a day on his 3P shooting with Engelland. The early results? He shot 53% from 3 in the preseason and even went 4 for 8 in one game. The Thunder will need Giddey to add scoring to his resume if they want to be competitive in any aspect. This could be a line that becomes -110 in a few weeks, so I’m jumping on the trend early at +145.
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Parlay +20408
$5-> $1,020
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