The Los Angeles Lakers will visit the Denver Nuggets on NBA Opening Night. The Nuggets knocked the Lakers out of last year’s postseason with a 4-0 sweep, but all but one of those games were within 10 points. The Lakers and LeBron James will look for some revenge tonight, and I’m excited about getting action on this LeBron James player prop. If you’re hungry for more action, check out our NBA betting tools or our NBA betting promos!
Lakers-Nuggets Player Prop: Best Bet for LeBron James
Lakers-Nuggets Odds
Odds via bet365
Lakers: +170 | Nuggets: -200
Lakers +5: -110 | Nuggets -5: -110
Over 228.5: -110 | Under 228.5: -110
Expert: Isaiah Sirois
Time: Tuesday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m. ET
LeBron James Underdog Promo
LeBron James H/L 0.5 Points
If you like to make easy money, well, Underdog Fantasy has your back. The DFS gaming site offers users the option to construct lineups of different players and back them to either go higher or lower than a given number in a certain statistical category, and tonight, they’re discounting LeBron James’ point total to… 0.5. Yep, you heard that right: 0.5.
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Lakers-Nuggets Player Prop: Best Bet for LeBron James
LeBron James O/U 14.5 Rebounds & Assists
If you’re looking for a traditional pick on the NBA player prop markets, then you’re in luck: we’re backing LeBron James to record more than 14.5 total rebounds and assists. James averaged 14.3 rebounds and assists against the Denver Nuggets in the regular season last year, but all of those games came before L.A. reinvented itself at the deadline. James averaged 19.5 rebounds and assists against the Nuggets in the playoffs.
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The question this line asks is whether James’ range of outcomes is closer to his playoff production, which required him to play 42.7 minutes per game, or his regular season production, for which he played 35.3 minutes per game. But James’ production doesn’t just come down to workload — he averaged 0.456 rebounds and assists per minute in the playoffs and 0.405 in the regular season. At his playoff rate, he’d record 16.3 rebounds and assists over his usual regular-season workload.
That said, tonight’s Lakers will look a bit different from both the team LeBron took on the Nuggets in the regular season and in the playoffs. Dennis Schroder, an assist extraordinaire, is gone. Replacing him is Gabe Vincent. Jarred Vanderbilt is out, which should see more effective offensive weapons in Taurean Price and Rui Hachimura on the court. The personnel changes in L.A. make it likelier for James to go over this relatively low number.
LeBron James Player Prop Pick: Over 14.5 Points & Assists -102 at FanDuel
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