Saturday’s Best NBA Player Props: Betting Ben Simmons Assists, More

Saturday’s best NBA player props focus on two of the slate’s four games:

• Brooklyn Nets at Philadelphia 76ers: 2:30 p.m. ET
• Orlando Magic at Toronto Raptors: 5 p.m. ET

As a reminder, our FantasyLabs NBA Player Props Tool leverages our projections against odds offered at various sportsbooks and grades each prop on a scale of 1 to 10. All odds as of 12:00 p.m. ET. View live odds here.

76ers PG Ben Simmons

THE PICK: Over 6.5 assists (-165)

This prop is juiced up pretty heavily, but it’s still providing a lot of value.

Simmons has averaged 7.7 assists per game this season and has handed out at least seven assists in 52-of-79 (65.8%) games. He should also benefit from the absence of Joel Embiid — Simmons has increased his assist rate by 1.9% with Embiid off the court since the All-Star break as well as an increase in playing time.

Simmons should be asked to carry a big workload in Game 1 of their first-round series against the Nets. This has a Bet Quality of 10 (out of 10) in our props tool, and I'd play it up to -180.

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Raptors C Serge Ibaka

THE PICK: Under 12.5 points (-115)

Ibaka has been great for the Raptors, but this doesn't seem like a series in which he’ll have a huge impact.

They’re facing a team with a true center in Nikola Vucevic, which means Ibaka will likely find himself on the wrong side of a timeshare with Marc Gasol. Ibaka is currently projected for just 20.5 minutes in our FantasyLabs NBA Models, and it’s going to be hard to score at least 13 points in such a short period of time.

Ibaka has played 21 or fewer minutes in 10 games this season, and he’s scored fewer than 13 points in seven of them.

This line is a bit too high, and I’d play the under up to -125.