Tuesday’s Best NBA Player Props: Is Kevin Love a Passer Now?

Betting on props can be one of the easiest ways to build your bankroll. Sportsbooks tend to offer lower limits and take less action on props than they do on games, so they don’t have as much incentive to post an accurate line.

That's where our Player Prop tool comes in handy. We compare our industry-leading NBA projections to the props posted at a variety of sportsbooks to identify the best plays each day. Each bet is then graded on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the best possible grade.

Odds as of Thursday afternoon. Check out PointsBet, where Action Network users can access an exclusive promotion to get a 200% deposit match (deposit $50, bet with $150).

How about a little reminder on just how impressively these bets did last season? Props with a Bet Quality of 10 posted a win rate of 60.31%, and props with a Bet Quality of nine won at a 58.82% clip.

As is the case with most sports, betting on unders proved to be more profitable than betting on overs last season:

• Unders with a Bet Quality of 10: 341-172 (66.47%)
• Unders with a Bet Quality of 9: 457-273 (62.6%)
• Unders with a Bet Quality of 8: 898-589 (60.39%)
• Unders with a Bet Quality of 7: 1447-1086 (57.13%)
• Unders with a Bet Quality of 6: 1992-1663 (54.95%)

Overall, if you just blind bet every under with a Bet Quality of eight or higher, you would’ve won at a 62.1% clip on more than 2,700 bets.

Tonight’s props come from three of the slate’s six games:

• Boston Celtics at Cleveland Cavaliers: 7:00 p.m. ET
• Los Angeles Lakers at Chicago Bulls: 8:00 p.m. ET on NBA TV
• Orlando Magic at Oklahoma City Thunder: 8:00 p.m. ET

Let’s dive in.

Thunder G Shai Gilgeous-Alexander

THE PICK: Over 5.5 rebounds (-125)[In New Jersey? Bet now at PointsBet]

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was the crown jewel piece in the Paul George trade, and he has looked the part for the Thunder. Gilgeous-Alexander is averaging 21.8 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 3.3 assists per game in his sophomore campaign.

SGA is still listed as a point guard, but he's only played around 3% of his minutes at that position, according to Basketball Reference. He's spending most of his time at the two and some at the three, with Chris Paul or Dennis Schroder running the point. And all of that really matters because it's put SGA into a much better rebounding position, and the numbers show it.

SGA's defensive rebounding percentage has nearly doubled, up from 8.3 to 16.2%. He's secured at least seven rebounds in five straight games, and our Player Props tool projects 7.4 boards tonight and rates this prop a 10 out of 10. We'll ride this one all the way up to -175 if needed.

Bulls C Wendell Carter Jr.

THE PICK: Over 7.5 rebounds (-159) [In New Jersey? Bet now at PointsBet]

We're playing a second sophomore tonight in Chicago center Wendell Carter Jr. His rebounding rates are up on both offense and defense this season, and he's grabbing 9.4 boards a game in 27.9 minutes.

This prop appears to be stuck on last year's number, when WCJ was at 7.0 boards a game. But this season, Carter has gone over 7.5 rebounds in six of seven games, and he was only half a board short in the other one.

Carter will have his hands full against Anthony Davis, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard, and he tends to get into some foul trouble. He's also playing through a thumb injury. This bet looks good at -159 but those limitations mean we'll probably tap out around -175.

Cavs PF Kevin Love

THE PICK: Over 3.5 assists (+135)

There are so many delicious props early in the season while the lines haven't caught up to new trends. Kevin Love has averaged 2.3 assists a game for his career, but he's dishing out 4.3 dimes a game this fall.

Love's assist rate has leapt from 12.2% in his career to 20.6% this season. He's only had one other season with even close to that assist rate, and that was his final season in Minnesota, which was his highest usage season.

Those numbers faded as Love became a third option with James and Kyrie Irving around, but now he's the healthy option 1A and 1B on this Cavs team and the numbers are booming.

Love has games of four, six, and nine assists already. He's the pivot man on this offense and has a better than 50-50 shot at hitting the over. Normally that's not a particularly ringing endorsement, but the line is heavily in our favor at +135 so that makes this a strong play all the way to +110.