 This is covering the spread part of the Fandall podcast network Had a nice night betting the NBA last night based on the advice of branding a doula So let's run it back and talk more NBA for today this time. We're bringing on Tom Vecchio You know Tom from talking NFL with us mostly props, but also doing some betting for us We're gonna talk to Tom about tonight's NBA sled and let you know where there is value on the board at Fandall sports book This is covering the spread right here on the Fandall podcast network and number fire calm My name is Jim saw this I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire calm joined here as mentioned by Tom Vecchio Check him out on Twitter at DFS underscore Tom. Check out all this prop work over at number fire calm as well Do an NBA NHL NFL etc. Tom happy Wednesday to you. How are you doing today? I'm doing good. You know, this is a NBA props are super interesting I think there's there are a lot of things consider I think this is this could be a really good discussion when it comes to overall process Obviously, we can we can apply that on a night's night basis kind of regardless of what factors are changing. I'm ready to go You're ready to go and I realized just now we should probably get you on talk NHL at some point, too So Just you know, that is my favorite. So I'm springing stuff on you with no warning But I think that's been my specialty since we transitioned to being a daily show So down the road maybe next week. We'll talk some NHL with Tom to get his read on the prop markets there and more So looking forward to that We're gonna dive in and let you know what Tom is seeing a forward tonight in just one second But first a reminder to make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcasts our wild card weekend First look is up on the covering the spread podcast feed and over on the fan dual YouTube page Get that by searching for covering the spread wherever you get your podcast hitting subscribe And then if you like what you hear leave us a rating interview as well Ryan Williams with us tomorrow to talk about his favorite NFL beat bets for week or for wild card weekend as well for more NFL Discussion and player props coming up on Friday for this weekend The NFL Saturday million is now live on a fan dual for daily fantasy Put your NFL knowledge to the test and create your best nine player roster While staying under the salary cap then using fan duals live scoring feature You can follow along as you compete for your share of one million dollars in prizes with first place taking home $200,000 for just a five dollar entry fee. The Saturday slate is a whole lot of fun So get your entries in before Saturday with lots at around 430 plenty of big names using your lineups Saturdays coming quickly set a fan dual comm and enter your lineups today Eligibility restrictions apply go to fandal calm or download the fandal app for more details now Tom We had you on to talk about props and talk about the NBA before opening night But that was several months ago. I have dumped all knowledge for my brain Since that time so I want to go back and talk about that once again as a refresher What does your prop betting process look like in the NBA? so NBA is Super unique because I think for mobile factors and this is this is probably the longest Part like of the questions that we're going to go through of the things that run like this is probably the longest part So it's also the most important part it is It's like when we if we think about this from like an NFL perspective or I'll use an example It's like okay when wide receiver a is out we look to the sample size for wide receiver b It's like okay his his target share increases By X amount of like wow he goes from like a 22 percent target share. It's up to 28 Like wow, that's awesome. Like we love seeing that but it's not like he's gonna be seeing every pass Number one and it's not like they're gonna be you know passing ball on every play in the NBA Since there's so much action like that player that sees that increase in usage Offensive usage is going to be heavily involved just because of the nature of the sport So mba starts with injuries like when players Teams generally have two big players three big players. So when player a b or c is out, how does that impact? So offensive usage rate is the thing that I'll refer to which is a formula It's about the teams total feel good temps and the players total feel good temps and minutes and all these things The formula is not important. But you can look at the change. So when You know when uh, yonatan de kumpo was off the court We're going to talk about that game later when he's off the court Who sees the offensive increase in usage for the box? Well, that would be your holiday That'd be chris middleton if he's playing bobby porters would jump in the starting lineup We can look at specific increases in their usage And then we also can look at feel good temps rebounds that assist per 36 minutes or per 48 minutes It all starts with the injuries of how I'm evaluating what players I want to be targeting and I would almost say It's actually easier when teams Are dealing with injuries because if everyone's fully healthy Then it's kind of just like whoever has the hot hand that night is just going to be the guy that crushes all his props Where on you know, and then if you have the other player kind of let that to dry where if we know someone is injured it's not like Like the way I put it is like the range of outcomes is smaller in the NBA because if a tentacumpo is out It's not like drew holidays going to play 10 minutes and only take two field attempts barring an injury Like if we look at the range of outcomes for a football player in the example I'll use as Justin Jefferson as we saw a couple weeks ago into the Packers. He did nothing Right, how I'm aware tom. Believe me my dss bankroll is very aware But how many catches at the end of I think he had two for like 35 or two for 15 or something Right, so he did nothing but in in games when he goes crazy He has like 30 plus fandom points and the way we can translate that is like when a tentacumpo is out the court Drew holidays gonna be out there for 35 plus minutes taking 18 or 20 field attempts He's never going to be out there For 35 minutes taking two field attempts one assist and one rebound that just does not happen So the range of outcomes in the NBA is smaller. So it creates much more value and props and much more consistency So it starts with the injuries and we have to use that as like a really really hard template going forward because it is very accurate Now you were talking about the usage rates I think the other tough part at least for me is minutes because minutes will change too based on player availability Are you looking at projections to decide minutes? You know, what do you lean on for that specific aspect of the analysis? Yeah, so I'll look at projections. We have them number fire You know a tons of sites across the industry where you can find minutes projections You know PRA projections, which I'll get into the points rebounds assist projections The minutes are are relatively easy to See like once you get into NBA DFS NBA betting you can see When player a b or c is out who jumps in the starting lineup a player that normally sees 35 minutes may see 38 minutes Like they're pretty easy to understand once you get into the flow for a couple weeks or a couple months Now, I know when we talked, I believe this might have been I don't know if this is an NHL discussion We had some discussion and you were talking about uh, no, it's an MLB You were talking about the value of alternate markets And if you felt really good about a player, you'd be pretty willing to go in alternate markets because It's not volatile and I think of alternate markets when I think of volatility in the positive sense Are you staying away from our do you find yourself primarily betting the main markets for NBA? Or do you still like to go to those alternate markets to get better juice despite the fact that it is not as volatile It's both and and it's it's injury dependent. It's also game environment dependent where The the PRA bet points rebounds assist bet is my favorite in the NBA It's one of my favorite across all sports and it's something that you would Understand because you always talk about multiple paths to getting some correct You know rushing plus receiving all those sorts of things where the PRA that is exactly it It's points plus rebounds plus assists where the player doesn't need to go out there and drop 40 points He can have 22 plus six plus seven and all of a sudden he's over so I look to alternate markets if they're if I think the game environment will allow it where the players You know points prop is sitting at 19 and a half, but I want to take him at 25 plus I want to take him at 30 plus Because the game environment allows it and he's also in a spot to see increased offensive usage because a player is out When you say game environment, are you alluding to a tight spread or what is that for you in the in the NBA? number one thing would be Offensive pace for teams and that is possessions per game Where you know teams that essentially if you just think about it logically If a team waits until there's two seconds or three seconds left on the shot clock and then shoots Obviously, there's going to be fewer possessions like a team that runs the ball They're like the packers of the NBA Waiting to the snap the the the snap clock is down to two seconds every time right But if a team like gets them down the court and they're shooting when there's 18 seconds left on the shot clock There's obviously just gonna be x amount more possession So game environment would be high overrunters and close spreads ideally Obviously high overrunters is still great because even if a team Even if a team is like the suns are 13 point dogs tonight But they're also very very hit by injuries So their players still have value like something like mccail burges had a big game last night Like he's still gonna need to play 30. He played 40 minutes last night Like he could still play 38 minutes because they're shorthanded Doesn't matter if they get blown out because they need him out there, right because Chris paul is out Devin bookers out the under eight didn't play last night campaign is out Kim johnson is out like they are just so shorthanded that he needs to play 38 minutes So regardless if they're down by 15 or 20, he's still gonna be out there So I like high overrunters Close spreads and ideally teams that play in the top 15 of the league when it comes to offensive pace For example last night the clippers and the mavericks played Those two teams are the bottom seven of league in offensive pace last night was a slate low 221 overrun under and I think it ended with 214 points So luka didn't have a huge game Because the clippers are good on defense the maves are good on defense Like this is a playoff type environment where they play slow and there's not a whole lot of back and forth action Yeah, I think the the important part there is you are using other markets to decide how you want to bet props I think that that is a key thing if you're new to betting nba props You can lean on other data to tell you how to bet things now. I do want to talk about that as well Are you primarily a prop better where to come see nba? Are you betting sides totals stuff like that as well? It's primarily props. I'm okay with sides every now and then I like to take good teams that are Coming off of a couple losses. I expect them to rebound You know, you look to like their offensive efficiency numbers defensive efficiency numbers And if they are struggling, you know, I look to them, you know to to You know find, you know, well, what am I regression to the mean is the phrase I'm looking for If they have some couple off nights I think totals are extremely tough to bet in the nba. I think they're one of the toughest markets in all sports and I guess the same example from last night is like the the maves clippers like Super low scoring game for nba standards at two. I think it's 214 or 215 total points. But Like if if the game goes to overtime That game's going over if the players like wake up on the right side of the bed and have their favorite pre game meal And everyone comes out hitting every shot then like the game is going to cruise over but And and if the opposite side if we have the two worst defense is going up against each other And the teams come out and no one can hit a shot then the game's a dead under Regardless of how bad these teams are on defense. So I think totals are extremely tough to bet in the nba So it's only sides for me and it's specifically good teams coming off of losses in a spot to rebound Okay, well, let's spin that all forward then and talk about tonight's slate because we do the couple of A couple of nationally televised games We've got the bucks and the hawks and the suns at the nuggets the suns Spoiling Steph Curry's return last night winning that game handedly despite like you said a lot of injuries in that game So if we're the people want to get action on those games that they may be watching for tonight Any bets standing out for you and either of those? Yeah, so one of them would be the One of them would prop market would be of course be brook lopez over six and a half rebounds That's saying a minus 128 Um, you know people even following the nba like brook lopez is having a really solid year He's been over this number in a lot of recent games He's also going over in a big capacity in a lot of these recent games 10 You know 12 14 high rebounding games We are dealing with what is it a two point spread for this game two and a half point spread at 236 over under Both teams are in the top half league of offensive pace So like we're kind of checking a lot of boxes here, which I of course love to see We also see the hawks. They're missing clint capella Who's their their starting center one, you know a great rebounder, which means they'll have amyaka kangoo starting at center and Frankly, I think brook lopez is pretty good already We see atlanta allowing What is the the eighth most or the seventh most rebounds per game opposing centers and they're missing their starting center So like we're checking boxes here where he's been consistent high pace game high over under and there's a positive injury For their favor from the opposing team So that would be number one and then number two would be tray young under eight and a half assists Uh, which is sitting. Oh, this has Okay, this has jumped up now just changed from eight and a half to nine and a half So maybe now this is not the spot that I like it was eight and a half 10 minutes ago before we hopped on here. It's now up to nine and a half It's now under nine and a half a minus 142, which I don't in theory. I still love. I don't love the juice though Right and you also don't like the fact the market moved the other way, right? That's that's an important thing You know you're recognizing that the market disagrees. It is minus 142 on the under right now for tray young Which is a lot But I think that kind of using the market as an indicator. Okay. Maybe this one continues to rise potentially Waiting it out and seeing if you do see more movement that direction that could be an indicator of whether you want to invest later on Right. So that that changes things. Um, I would I would consider going to do Drew holiday points plus assists is sitting at 26 and a half It's minus 120 on the over if this number changes if I give it 25 and a half That would be a little bit more favorable It's obviously not a huge difference in any capacity, but there's still no chris middleton for the box Um, they kind of need a big a big rebound game the box have been a little bit inconsistent, especially their defense so I expect a whole ton of minutes for holiday Everyone's going to be looking to attend to koonpo, but his numbers are Obviously massive 51 and a half is his pra number Which is listen. He can get there on points alone in theory. Sure Um, especially I mean some of these games he put up like a week and a half He's had like a streak of where he's put up 20 in each half for like In 20 games for 40 points in 20 rebounds. So he could do I mean it's What and I will say this when it comes to attend to koonpo when it comes to luka Uh, lebron duranz some of these mb yokich my my policy on them as I've said this to Uh, ben stevens, you know when I go on a sports group talking here about a half an hour So I'll talk to them about a half an hour. It's my my policy on them is very simple I take the over or I stay away. Right. I do not take unders on these players I'm not going to sit there and sweat Attend to koonpo who can get to a triple double by halftime It can be it can be a good value on the under but that doesn't mean you want to put yourself through that Right. So that's okay to sit it out. If you if you don't want to deal with that stress That's fine as we've said before the best bet sometimes is not making one So I bet the over or I just don't bet it at all because I'm not going to sit there and then Check the box where an attend to koonpo goes for 40 20 and 10 right Right, exactly. So that's the milwaukee versus atlanta game the denver versus phoenix game Not a lot posted given that the suns have a ton of injuries and just played last night Anything for you in that one anything? You'll be looking at once prop markets do open or is it all too up in the air for us to have a major discussion there right now It's it's up in the air, but I think it's clear if mackayl bridges is playing I think he has some value again depending on where that line is because he did have a big night last night Deondre Aten the sun starting center was listed as questionable last night In theory, there's a chance that he placed tonight just because he you know, he was questioned going into last night, etc etc I think they're hypothetically could be some value on yokich unders and I kind of explain this on the daily isa what which is You know our dfs podcast, which is why I'm kind of lukewarm to not excited about yokich tonight because Going into altitude at denver. They've defended home court very well this season and over the previous seasons Uh, they're already shorthanded phoenix. This is and they're on the second I have a back-to-back. So I literally don't think yokich may need to play 38 minutes I think there's some real blowout potential in this game, right? So He could make he may not have to play at all in the fourth quarter is the point that I Essentially make where I'd be interested in unders on him in theory Depending on who's available for the sun because if they can't keep this game close This the nuggets could run away with this game by 20 points Right, exactly. So that it's a it's a very very touchy market tonight because of the sun's and their lack of health Right, so if they're healthier that may push you away from the yokich unders If they're less healthy then that could be the spot to dive in there, right? Okay, we got a lot of the games on the wednesday slate though. So What are their numbers? Do you see right now that you like or which other situations? Are you keeping an eye on for once props are eventually posted there? So the number one situation i'm keeping my eye on would be with the bulls Going up against the washington wizards. It's a one point spread. It's a 230 over under both great things DeMar DeRozan the bull's best player left their most recent game with the quad issue Zach Levine is their second best player. He's been on fire as of late Um, and he sees an increase in usage when de mar de rosans off the court. We also see Nicola vusovic. They're starting center Being productive. This is also a phenomenally easy matchup for him going up against washington Bradley biel is out uh for washington Daniel gafford and chris ops porzingis are both listed as questionable So if they are out for washington, this is going to be a very very easy path for vusovic because he's going to be playing Get's backups and de mar de rosan being out So we have a close spread a high over under an injury situation on both sides which could point to massive production for vusovic and Zach Levine, so this is Absolutely a game. I have my eye on it's like every night. It's like injuries game environment. How many of these boxes can you check? and Do the lines make sense? Do the projections support it? Am I going crazy like how many of these things are accurate on the night to night basis? Yeah, if you can get some of the checks every box, you know, why not dive right in So we're keeping eye on the bulls keep an eye on de mar de rosan's availability If he can't go vusovic seems in line to benefit potentially Zach Levine as well Any other things you're seeing right now on the board? Uh For some reason nicks props aren't posted their props posted for the indiana pacers But none for the nicks, which is there. I don't think the nicks are dealing with too many injuries or any at all I guess rj barrier But julius randall for the nicks is stepping out and taking a lot of threes lately Which is uh always a spot to look you get four in the fourth quarter alone in one of their games against The front of raptors recently. So I am absolutely interested in that and then finally it would be Dometis subbonus for the sacramental kings going up against the houston rockets Uh, like subbonus over 34 and a half points plus rebounds sitting on minus 108 Uh, houston rockets not particularly known for their defense in some of these recent years The kings are a great offensive team in terms of offensive efficiency Uh subbonus should be an all-star. He may not officially be an all-star But he's having a phenomenal year high over under it does have a was a nine and a half point spread for this game eight and a half points nine and a half points, but 237 over under Um And in theory if they're going to be getting to that nine point spread subbonus will be very involved Okay, so subbonus the number there for you was 34 and a half points plus rebounds That was minus one away over at fangirl sports book For that late night game between the kings and the rockets That is tom vecchio make sure you check him out on twitter at dfs underscore tom will be having tom on to talk some hl You know i'm volunteering you for that in the very near future to break down that we'll talk more mba with him as well A lot of tom coming up here on the show and i'm very excited about that tom Good luck to you tonight in the mba and we'll talk to you once again here soon Yeah, thanks for having me As mentioned check out tom's work his prop work over at number fire dot com find him on twitter at dfs underscore tom He mentioned his dfs podcast as well the daily iso it's over on the number fire daily fantasy podcast He i am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s you can also follow the fan dual podcast network at fan dual podcast I want to thank you all for tuning in for today back tomorrow to break down wild card weekend with ryan williams It's been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network