NBA Player Prop Bets: 3 Friday Picks, Including Jaylen Brown & Omer Yurtseven (January 14)

Some days you've got to dig a little deeper. Every now and then we get to play superstars in this NBA props article. Today we're going the other way and playing two far less heralded players in Hamidou Diallo and Omer Yurtseven.

And sometimes you need to get creative too. We've been playing a bunch of Boston Celtics props lately, and there's another new Jaylen Brown angle to add. I detail that one below and include three other props from that game to help you set up a Same Game Parlay.

We'll be using the Action Labs Player Prop tool to compare our NBA projections to the props posted at a variety of sportsbooks. Below, I have laid out three prop-bets that I'm playing, the case for each bet and the best books to find odds on those player props. You can also find that SGP at the bottom.

NBA Player Props & Picks

Hamidou Diallo, over 5.5 rebounds (+115)

The Pistons are searching for answers. They have the second worst record in the NBA at 9-31, and the team has really lacked scoring with Jerami Grant out over the past month. Detroit has young talent up and down the roster but is searching for bodies just to take minutes some nights.

Hamidou Diallo is one of the players who has started to step into a bigger role with Grant out. Diallo is raw but has grown his game a lot over the past few seasons, and his hyper-athleticism will always give him a shot on an NBA court.

Over the last 12 games, Diallo has put up a pretty impressive stat line. He's at 16.3 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 2.4 steals a game. The scoring is pretty shocking given the player we saw come into the league, though it's been very up and down. But that athleticism means that Diallo is a consistent rebounding threat as long as he gets the minutes.

Diallo has gone over 5.5 rebounds in 10 of these last 12 games, often comfortably, so it's nice to get this as a plus number. The value is coming because Diallo's minutes have been fading lately, but we're projecting him at 30 minutes tonight along with 6.8 boards, so that makes this prop a 10 out of 10 at our Props Tool.

I won't go crazy with the minutes bouncing around a bit, but you have to like this at +115 the way Diallo's numbers have been shining lately. I'll play to -115.

Jaylen Brown, under 3.5 assists (+100)

Jaylen Brown was a first-time All-Star last year, and though the Celtics have felt disappointing this season, he's mostly matched his numbers. For the season, Brown is at 24.5 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 3.0 assists per game. The scoring efficiency is up a bit, though the shot creation is down from 3.6 APG last year.

We've been playing a bunch of Brown overs lately with his numbers up, particularly on 3-pointers, but this assists line is too high. Brown has gone under 3.5 assists in 20 of his 28 games this season, hitting this under 71% of the time. Even with the Celtics shorthanded over the past month, he's still gone under 3.5 dimes in seven of the last 11 games.

Brown did have six and 11 assists in two games over the past week, so that might scare you away, but it shouldn't. One of those games was a rare offensive outburst from the Celtics when they hit a ton of shots and the other one went into overtime and bought Brown extra minutes. Outside of those two outliers, Brown's playmaking has dropped even more at 2.4 APG during these last 11 games.

I have to play the assists under here at +100, and I'll play that one to -125. It's one of our top props on the board today at the Prop Tool, with a 19% edge in our favor.

Omer Yurtseven, over 10.5 rebounds (-115)

Don't look now, but Miami has done it again. The Heat have turned yet another no-name guy into a star role player for the team. This has been Miami's trademark over the past few years, and with Bam Adebayo still out, the unheralded Omer Yurtseven has really come through as the starting center for a team that's quietly moved all the way to the East 3-seed.

It wasn't always this way. Yurtseven was a top-75 RSCI recruit out of high school, but he was a relative bust at North Carolina State before transferring to Georgetown and then going undrafted. Still, the Turk has worked hard to refine his game and he's blossomed into a reliable rotation guy in Miami.

Yurtseven is especially strong on the glass. He's had double-digit rebounds in 14 straight games for the Heat, and that number has gone up even more lately. While starting the last eight games, Yurtseven is at 14.6 rebounds per game, including an impressive 4.0 offensive boards per game helping to buoy the Heat attack.

This line has been far too slow to adjust, and Yurtseven rebounding overs have been hitting for weeks already. This is also a spot where you can play an alternate over if you like. Yurtseven has recorded at least 14 rebounds in six of these eight starts, and you can play him to have 14-plus boards at +230 at FanDuel. You can also play Yurtseven to record a double-double at PointsBet for +100 if you prefer that route; he's done that in six of eight starts too.

It's time to pay the big man some respect. He's certainly earned his due. I'll play the over 10.5 boards to -150 and will probably sprinkle a bit of my bet on that alternate over at +230 too.

But it's not all doom and gloom for Brown, as I laid out above. I'm still playing his 3-pointers, and I've got a few other props from this game if you want to build a Same Game Parlay:

• Brown over 2.5 threes (+100 FanDuel): He's over this in 10 of 15 with 3.4 makes on 8.7 attempts per game during that stretch. Attempts dropped to four and six and worried us but back to 11 last game. Keep playing the volume.
• Robert Williams over 8.5 rebounds (-104 FanDuel): He's a rebounding monster and over this number in nine of his last 10. Even last game when he burned us with under 23 minutes played, he still had nine boards. The minutes drop scared me off his alt overs for a bit, but this still looks good, especially since the Sixers are a poor rebounding team.
• Seth Curry over 2.5 threes (+150 DraftKings): Curry doesn't get a ton of volume but is such a good shooter this is still a good play. He's over in 6 of 10 games with at least two makes in every game, a crazy valuable floor. Even if he only gets a handful of shots, he'll have a chance with that accuracy.

If you want to play all four of these props (including Brown's assists under), you can play all four together in a PointsBet SGP at +1600.

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