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 FanDuel Sportsbook 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.
Patrick Beverley Over 4.5 Rebounds (-106)
Patrick Beverley gets a plush rebounding matchup against the San Antonio Spurs, who are 28th in estimated rebounding rate.
They also struggle to prevent guards from grabbing boards. Their 7.9 rebounds per 48 minutes allowed to opposing backcourts is a league-high. Only one other team is above 7.1 in that regard.
Beverley himself is projected for 4.7 rebounds, in line with the 4.8 he's reeled in so far this season on a per-game basis.
The projected rebounding rate, though, is 0.16 per minute, a tick down from the 0.18 he's had overall this season (which is also the same as his four-year rate). So even with a bit of a downgrade in rebounding rate, he's projected for enough minutes to get to 4.7 boards.
If we were to use his four-year average in per-minute rebounds, he'd be projected for 5.4.
In the plus matchup, we can lean on the over here.
Kyle Kuzma Over 2.5 Made Three-Pointers (+112)
For all the great defensive metrics the Miami Heat possess, they've allowed a ton of three-point attempts against them.
They're at league-highs in three-point attempts allowed per game (41.9) and three-point attempt rate (48.8% of field goals against them have come from beyond the arc).
Kyle Kuzma is up to 7.6 three-point attempts per game through 14 contests (0.21 per minute). That's up a little from a four-year rate of 0.19 but within his range of outcomes for sure.
And he should be able to increase that rate against a team that allows 121.1% of the league average rate of threes. You want to target volume from deep -- not efficiecy.
He should be projected for 3.0 threes tonight based on his rates and the matchup, so we can back his prop at plus money.
Mike Conley Under 6.5 Assists (-122)
Mike Conley should have very little wiggle room to get to seven assists tonight against the Toronto Raptors.
It's not just because he's averaged only 5.6 assists per game. It's more that he's done that despite having teammates convert on 53.2% of his potential assists, which is up from the NBA average of 50.2%.
Conley, then, has overperformed a little bit in the luck department in that sense.
His four-year assist rate is 0.19 per minute; that rate over his projected minutes tally (28.6) would get him to 5.3 assists.
The Raptors are league-average in assist rate surrendered and in assists per 48 minutes allowed to opposing backcourts, so we can't really anticipate a significant shift in his rate numbers.
Overall, numberFire's model views Conley as getting 5.9 assists tonight.
Using that baseline as the input in my simulation model, we should be considering Conley as 59.7% likely to stay under 7 assists. That suggests the under can be bet up to -148 odds while still seeing even-money probability.