Wednesday’s Best NBA Player Props: Betting Brandon Ingram Points, More

Prop bets can be a great way to get action on a game. Bookmakers don’t have to worry about taking a lot of action on them, so there isn’t as great an incentive to post a competitive line.

As a result, props can be some of the most exploitable bets on the board.

These props can become downright unfair when you combine them with our FantasyLabs Player Prop tool.

Wednesday’s best props focus on three of the slate’s 10 games:

• Golden State Warriors at Cleveland Cavaliers: 7 p.m. ET
• Denver Nuggets at Orlando Magic: 7 p.m. ET
• San Antonio Spurs at Los Angeles Lakers: 10:30 p.m. ET on ESPN

Warriors PF/C Kevon Looney

The Pick: Over 7.0 points (+105)

The Warriors frontcourt is really thin at the moment. Draymond Green is still out with a toe injury, Damian Jones will likely miss the next few months after undergoing surgery and DeMarcus Cousins won’t make his Warriors debut until after Christmas.

That opens up a nice role for Looney, who played 28.8 minutes in the Warriors’ last game. He’s far from a scoring machine, averaging just 11.3 points per 36 minutes this season, but just being on the floor for an offensive machine like the Warriors has value. He scored 14 points in his last game, so I think this line is a little low.

I like the idea of grabbing the over at better than even money, especially in a nice matchup vs. the Cavs. That said, I’d still be willing to play the over up to -130.

Nuggets C Nikola Jokic

The Pick: Over 18.5 points (-105)

Jokic is a special player and one of the most unique big men the league has ever seen. He recorded the third game of his career with at least 15 assists in his last outing, and no other center has even one such game over the past 20 seasons.

He’s such a good distributor that he can sometimes be too passive looking for his own shot, but I don’t think that will be an issue today.

The Nuggets are going to be without both Gary Harris and Will Barton, and Jokic has seen a massive +8.5% usage boost with both players off the floor this season. The result is an average of 27.5 points per 36 minutes, which would put him comfortably over his current scoring prop.

I’m buying Jokic stock everywhere I can for tonight’s contest, and I’d play this prop up to -150.

Lakers F Brandon Ingram

The Pick: Over 15.5 points (-114)

All good things must come to an end, and it appears we’ve reached that point with the San Antonio Spurs. They’ve fallen off drastically at the defensive end, ranking just 29th in defensive efficiency this season. They were torched for 139 points by the Jazz yesterday and now have to face the Lakers on the road for the second leg of a back-to-back.

Ingram has seen a nice uptick in playing time recently and is currently projected for 35.5 minutes in the FantasyLabs NBA Models. He’s averaged 17.7 points per 36 minutes this season, so the over has some value against a porous defense.

The Spurs defense still carries some cachet — having an elite defense for 20 years will do that for you — so there’s probably some value in targeting them until their perception catches up with reality. I like the over up to -140.