Raybon’s Favorite NBA Props for Friday: Nic Batum Over/Under 3.5 Assists?

The two NBA player props highlighted below are for the following two games:

• Washington Wizards at Charlotte Hornets: 7 p.m. ET
• Dallas Mavericks at Orlando Magic: 7 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 2 p.m. ET. View live odds here.

Hornets SG Nic Batum

The Pick: Over 3.5 Assists (-125)

Coming out of the All-Star break, Hornets coach James Borrego inserted Miles Bridges into the starting lineup for Jeremy Lamb, and having another defender capable of guarding the opponent’s top perimeter threat has allowed Batum to conserve more energy on the defensive end.

Batum is averaging 39.1 minutes per game since the break — up from his 31.2-minute pre-break clip — and has dished at least five assists in 4 of 7 games over that span.

The 30-year-old Frenchman should make it 5-of-8 tonight against a Wizards defense allowing the third-most assists in the league (26.0).

He’s handed out at least four assists in both previous meetings with Washington, including five in the most recent one back on Feb. 22.

I got down on this at -125, but our props tool rates this as a 10-out-of-10 in Bet Quality even up at -164 juice, and props rated as such have produced a 57%/40%/3% win/loss/push rate since the start of the season.

Mavericks C Dwight Powell

The Pick: Over 13.5 Points (+100)

Powell got it done for us with a career-high 26-point outburst Wednesday night to blow past over 14.5 on his points prop, and though we shouldn’t expect him to post 20-plus points for the fourth time in six stats (or should we?), going over an even lower prop is completely realistic.

Powell is averaging 19.0 points in 34.6 minutes over the past five games on a scorching 80% from the field and 90.9% from 3.

That’s obviously unsustainable, but even if we use his full-season rate of 0.49 points per minute, he’d need roughly only 28 minutes to put him on a 14-point pace.

With the Mavs apparently in full-on tank mode, Powell should continue to get all the run he can handle, regardless of the status of Maxi Kleber (knee, questionable).

Even with treating Kleber as though he is playing, our NBA Player Models have Powell projected for 35.5 minutes, most on the team, so this prop should have value even if the line increases a half-point so long as it’s not juiced up past the -120s.