Best NBA Player Props Today: Wembanyama Hosts a Block Party

Prop bet #1: Antetokounmpo attacks

The Washington Wizards are one of the least serious teams in the NBA. While they have a collection of players who have been contributors in other contexts, none of them produce a context by themselves that allows others to thrive. They are distinctly less than the sum of their parts, particularly on defense.

Their perimeter players outside of Tyus Jones die on every screen and allow blow-bys and paint touches as a matter of course. That lack of effort and discipline spells value in Giannis Antetokounmpo odds, particularly when he's motivated to have a bounce-back performance.

The Milwaukee Bucks just got thoroughly handled by their conference rivals in the Boston Celtics on Wednesday, and Giannis himself had a subpar game. That’s typically a recipe for him to have a monster outing the next night. The three times that Giannis has scored under 22 points this season, he’s come out and had 36, 54, and 40 in the follow-up contests. 

Washington allows 71.6% shooting at the rim and the 10th-highest frequency of shots there per Cleaning the Glass. Giannis just had 42 against them on Monday. Expect Giannis to be in his office early and often on Friday.

Giannis Antetokounmpo prop: Over 30.5 points (-115 at FanDuel)

Prop bet #2: Suggs makes magic

The Orlando Magic are 10-5 and have won four games in a row. While the public eye primarily heaps praise on the likes of Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner for their meteoric rise, there’s a third player in this young core that’s just as integral to their success: Jalen Suggs.

Suggs had such a rough rookie campaign that he was written off as a potential star almost immediately. But he was always going to be a different kind of impact player, with former ESPN draft expert Mike Schmitz comparing him to Boston Celtics defensive stud Jrue Holiday.

It was an apt comparison and an ironic one given the reasoning for this prop. Suggs is already one of the five or so best perimeter defenders in the NBA. He’s a chaos agent on defense, one of the elite playmakers who you feel on every possession whether his man has the ball or not. This is reflected in his defensive Estimated Plus Minus, which at +3.2, is third-highest in the NBA.

More than likely, he’ll be guarding Holiday for large stretches of Friday’s game, and for all his virtues, Jrue has always been a high-turnover player. He ranks in the 28th percentile for turnovers among combo guards, with a 14.1% turnover rate. 

Suggs is averaging two steals on the season and had a season-high six back on November 9. At plus money, the expected value in these Jalen Suggs odds is obvious.

Jalen Suggs prop: Over 1.5 steals (+110 at DraftKings)

Prop bet #3: Victor’s leftover stuffing

Victor Wembanyama is a future superstar, there is simply no doubt about it. What is up for debate is how impactful he is right now, in his rookie season. He’s wildly inefficient and up and down as a player, as you expect of a more typical rookie. 

How much of that is his fault or the fault of an incredibly poor San Antonio Spurs context is an open question. But that context cannot take away from some of Victor’s core gifts as a player, such as being incredibly tall, incredibly long, and incredibly quick. 

All three of these things have made him into a monster rim protector already. Wemby is at a 4.4% block percentage is 98th percentile among all bigs per Cleaning the Glass, and he’s averaging 2.6 blocks per game, which right now puts him third in the NBA.

His opponents on Friday are the diminutive Golden State Warriors. While they like to shoot jump shots, they take a lot of shots from floater range, which are well within Victor's range to stuff. Back the Victor Wembanyama odds for at least two blocks tonight.

Victor Wembanyama prop: Over 1.5 blocks (-148 at FanDuel)