5 NBA Player Prop Bets You Need to Make Before the 2024-25 Season Begins

The 2024-25 NBA season is right around the corner, and time is quickly running out to make some investments in several big names in the NBA futures markets.

We’re here to cover the very best NBA player props for the upcoming year, from some familiar faces in new places to potential breakout stories.

Let’s lay out the best NBA odds for several targets and get into my NBA picks below.

2024-25 NBA Season Player Props

•    Anthony Edwards 50+ Points in any 2024-25 Regular Season Game (+150)
•    Brandon Miller To Average 20+ Points Per Game (+120)
•    Buddy Hield Over 2.8 Threes Made Per Game (-115)
•    Klay Thompson Over 3.3 Threes Made Per Game (-115)
•    Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Over 6.4 Assists Per Game (-115)

Picks made on October 17 at 4:00 p.m. ET.

Anthony Edwards 50+ points in any regular-season game

Best odds: +150 at DraftKings

We’ll kick things off with a player who could easily snatch away the NBA MVP award this season and become one of the faces of the league in his fifth NBA season.

Anthony Edwards accomplished a lot last year, finishing seventh in MVP voting and making the All-Star team for a second straight year, but one milestone that should catch your eye is his inaugural 50-point game, which came back in April against the Washington Wizards.

The night was a long time coming for Edwards, who scored 30 or more points in 29 contests and 40 or more in three, following up on a 41-point performance in the playoffs two seasons ago. Last season ended in a similar manner with Edwards going for 40 in three playoff games for the Minnesota Timberwolves, and I think he’s ready to take yet another step forward this year.

Edwards saw his Usage Rate spike to a career-high 32.3 last season, after hitting 29.9% in 2022-23, and now that Karl-Anthony Towns has been shipped off to New York I expect Minnesota to further focus its offense on the superstar guard.

That should mean even more volume for the talented scorer, and the chances he adds a few more 50-point nights to his ledger against some weak opposition just as he did late last year are quite high. I think the market on Edwards to go for 60 in a game at +1000 is quite attractive, but this one is well within reason.

Brandon Miller To Average 20+ Points Per Game

Best odds: +120 at BetMGM

Brandon Miller emerged as one of the best values on the board in the scoring department on a nightly basis, and in his second season, I expect the second overall pick in last year’s draft to break through and win us some money.

Miller finished up the year with a handsome 17.3 points per game but did so in just an average of 32.2 minutes. It wasn’t until he was 32 games into his career that we saw coach Charles Lee take the training wheels off, playing Miller 33.7 minutes per game, and all the talented youngster did from that point forward was deliver with an average of 19.8 points on 45.4% shooting from the field and 37.2% from 3.

The 21-year-old slowed down just a hair after the All-Star break but finished strong with 20 or more points in eight of his last 13 games to give him an average of 20.4 each night over that span.

Now that Miller’s been fully installed as a focal point of this offense, and won’t have to deal with the same slow start in terms of his usage, I think this is a number he can easily shatter. His proficiency from outside the arc is incredible, and there’s really nobody on this team who will take shots away from him. Factor in that talented playmaker LaMelo Ball is now healthy and set to begin the season on the floor, and I think there will be opportunities abound for Miller.

Buddy Hield Over 2.8 Threes Made Per Game

Best Odds: -115 at DraftKings

We’ll make a turn into the 3-point averages here, beginning with Buddy Hield.

The veteran sharpshooter joined the Golden State Warriors over the offseason which should work out quite nicely for both him and those who choose to put their money behind him this year.

Golden State finished sixth in frequency of shots from beyond the arc a year ago with 39.4% of its attempts coming from deep according to Cleaning the Glass. This should be a much friendlier environment for Hield, who’s been brought in to replace the aging Klay Thompson, to fire up as many shots from outside as he’d like.

Indiana and Philadelphia sat 18th and 25th, respectively, in 3-point frequency last year, which was the driving force behind Hield taking just 6.8 shots per game from outside to mark his lowest average since 2017-18 — his second year in the league.

We know that the Warriors will look to shoot the ball plenty, and should be ready to give Hield a ton of minutes with Andrew Wiggins coming off a poor 2023-24 season and Brandin Podziemski still searching for consistency.

Hield did have a down year for his standards, hitting just 38.9% of his shots from outside, but he’s still a career 40% shooter from deep who, just two years ago, shot a ridiculous 42.5% with Indiana.

I expect his attempts per game to recover with a new team, and as long as we don’t see something catastrophic he should come in well above this number after finishing with just 2.6 made 3s on average last season.

Klay Thompson Over 3.3 Threes Made Per Game

Best odds: -115 at DraftKings

The man who Golden State let walk in favor of Hield after a disappointing year at the age of 33 still warrants our consideration even if the public perception of him is at an all-time low.

Klay Thompson had the second-worst season of his career from outside, yet still finished shooting 38.7% with 3.5 3s per game falling. Now, he’ll step into an even friendlier situation with the Dallas Mavericks, who finished second in the NBA last year in 3-point frequency at 41%.

Shooting the three-ball has long been the name of the game for Dallas, which is why they went out and signed Thompson in free agency. He’s slated to open the year as the Mavericks’ starting small forward, and considering he’s got the likes of Naji Marshall, Jaden Hardy, and Quentin Grimes behind him on the depth chart his spot in the starting lineup should be quite secure.

I’m struggling to understand why there’s not more faith in Thompson out of oddsmakers this year. It’s not as if he’ll be relegated to a bench role and struggle to see the floor, and with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving dealing with constant injuries I’d argue his outlook for minutes per game hasn’t been this secure in years.

As long as he plays, he’ll hit this number with ease. Dallas loves to shoot the ball from outside, and Thompson — even showing decline last year — proved capable of shooting well above average and hit the over on this total.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander Over 6.4 Assists Per Game

Best odds: -115 at BetMGM

Finally, we’ll take perhaps a big leap and back Shai Gilgeous Alexander to once again improve his performance in the assists column.

After a down year with 5.5 assists per game in 2022-23 — a season where he finished fifth in MVP voting — Gilgeous-Alexander produced a career-high 6.2 assists per game last year and finished second in the end-of-season vote.

The star guard quarterbacked the third-best offense in the league, and the outlook for the Oklahoma City Thunder should be even stronger this season.

Chet Holmgren looks to be a real talent down low for the Thunder, struggling down the stretch as he hit the proverbial rookie wall, but if he’s able to produce as he did for the first three months of the season this offense could jettison into the stratosphere. In flashing some good touch from outside, too, that should mean more converted assist opportunities for SGA.

The real interesting thing here, though, is the acquisition of Isaiah Hartenstein over the offseason. We just found out that the big man will be out for the first month of the season with a broken hand, but assuming that timeline is correct there should be more than enough time for him to make a positive impact on Gilgeous-Alexander.

The Knicks produced an excellent 61.2% assist rate last year with Hartenstein on the floor, improving from their mark of 59% in the minutes he sat. Point guard Jalen Brunson also found a 32.57% assist rate with Hartenstein on the court versus 30.58% without him.

Hartenstein's proficiency in the pick-and-roll promises to add an exciting new element to this already-strong Thunder offense, and he should help Gilgeous-Alexander pick up some easy helpers on his way to this mark.

This is an excellent offense that is only growing stronger with each month its young lineup gains more experience, and I think big things are coming in several stat columns for SGA.

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