NBA Season-Long Player Props | Keep an Eye on Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves

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With the WNBA season coming to its end, it’s almost time for basketball fans to turn their attention back to the men’s side of things for the upcoming NBA season.

Of course, as bettors, we don’t have the luxury of waiting until NBA Opening Night to start to get back in the swing of things, as evidenced by my regular season win totals article from July.

As the season approaches and more markets appear, let’s dive into season-long NBA player props for scoring averages in 2023-24.

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Best Bets

Lauri Markkanen Under 24.5 Points Per Game -110 (Caesars)

Last season’s Most Improved Player undoubtedly made a leap forward in his sixth NBA season, rising from 14.8 points per game in 2021-22 to 25.6 in 2022-23, but there’s reason to believe he’s due for a bit of regression in 2023-24.

First of all, player progress is far from linear, and just because he shot forward last season, it’s not safe to assume he will continue in that trajectory.

For example, last season Markkanen shot 39.1% on 3s and 58.5% from inside the arc. Coming into last season, Lauri was a 36.4% shooter from 3 and 51.6% shooter from 2 for this career. While some of this can be accounted for by getting stronger and being more aggressive on his attacks of the rim, it’s fair to bake in a bit of regression on both numbers, which basically gets us to an under already.

However, one other factor here favors the under: Collin Sexton returning to the lineup. Sexton only played in 48 games last season, but him sharing minutes with Markkanen was impactful. During the first 26 games of the season—the longest stretch when both were in the lineup together—Markkanen averaged 22.2 points—notably lower than the 27.8 he averaged the rest of the way.

But digging in even further, thanks to pbpstats.com, Markkanen’s points per 100 possessions went from 37.8 with Sexton off the court to 32.5 with him on the court last season. This makes perfect sense because Sexton is a very high-usage, ball-dominant guard who’s not exactly known for getting the best out of his teammates. 

However, Will Hardy has a reputation as a smart head coach, so maybe he will do his best to have them overlap as little as possible this season, but the inevitability of at least some increase in Sexton overlap, as well as the potential for shooting regression, makes Markkanen’s points per game prop under one of my favorite bets for this season.

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De’Aaron Fox Under 25 Points Per Game +100 (Caesars)

I’ll keep this one shorter since the case is quite similar to that of Markkanen. Fox's field goal percentage on 2-pointers made an insane leap from 52.4% in 2021-22 to 58.4% in 2022-23, with a chunk of that coming in the form of his insane run in late and clutch situations. 

Now the books have him projected to actually increase his points per game in 2023-24. I’m not there and will be fading the Kings guard.

Austin Reaves Over 16 Points Per Game -155 (Caesars)

You’ll notice the majority of these props are unders, as there does tend to be a bit more value on this side of the market, but Reaves is an exception in the Best Bets category, and that’s because there are several routes to a possible over here.

For one, even though we know progress isn’t perfectly linear, there are cases when players' stats do improve consistently for three straight seasons, and often that is the case when they are given more and more minutes.

Reaves averaged only 28.8 minutes per game last season, offering lots of head room to clear this number simply by increasing his minutes on the court. If he were to simply maintain his same scoring rate per 100 possession, he would clear this number if he gets 36 minutes per game. He’ll likely be a touch under that, but there are a few other reasons to like his over.

From an off-court perspective, it’s hard to deny that this offseason was a bit of a come-up for the young guard, making the Team USA roster and having several big moments for Steve Kerr's squad. I’m not one to weigh that sort of narrative too much, but I do think establishing himself as a legit dude can lead to teammates trusting him more with the ball.

His teammates (and coaches) clearly did start to trust him more as the season went along last year, as well. Before the All-Star break, Reaves was averaging 10.5 points in 27.9 minutes per game. After the All-Star break, he averaged 17.6 points in 30.4 minutes per game.

And then in the postseason, he averaged 16.9 points on 36.2 (!!) minutes per game. I don’t see that 36.2 minutes per game being his 50th percentile outcome, but even the 17.6 points in 30.4 minutes post-All-Star break easily clear this number. 

As a final nail in the coffin, he’s the third banana on a team with two very injury-prone stars (yes, LeBron James at this age does get that label). If either—or heaven forbid, both—miss any sort of significant time, Reaves’ numbers should really pop.

Bojan Bogdanovic Under 19.7 Points Per Game -115 (DraftKings)

This is almost the inverse of Reaves in that there are a couple different ways this under hits.

The most straightforward is that Cade Cunningham and Jaden Ivey are two incredibly ball-dominant guards who also happen to be the future of this organization, so Monty Williams will get them as many touches and shots as possible.

Ivey played most of last season, but Cunningham missed most games. In the 12 games to start the season when Cunningham did play, Bogdanovic's points per game were down at 19.3 compared to 22.2 for the rest of the season. 

However, there’s another very viable path to this under: Bogdanovic gets traded to a contender midseason. I was already leaning toward this under, but Brandon Anderson made this point, and it’s an excellent one.

The Pistons are almost certainly going to be in rebuild mode again this season, and if a team (like the Celtics) comes knocking around the deadline, it would be silly to not flip Bogdanovic for some assets. Almost any team that wants to add Bogdanovic is going to have him in a smaller role, which will aid this under as well.

Best of the Rest

Jalen Brunson Under 24.5 Points Per Game +100 (Caesars)

This projection is simply too high. Why would Brunson, fresh off by far a career-best 3-point shooting season (41.6%, up from 37.3% for his career) and in a role that actually relied on him creating his shot more often, average half a point more this season than last?

On a Knicks team that brings back pretty much the same roster where the young guards now have an extra year of experience and confidence, I expect Brunson's role to shrink in the regular season.

Nikola Vucevic Under 17.5 Points Per Game -125 (Caesars)

Vooch has cleared this by the hair of his chinny chin chin each of the last two seasons, with 17.6 points per game in each season.

As he enters his age-33 season, I’m looking at his under. For one, he is quite an old 33, having played more minutes in his career already than fellow Euro stretch big Zydrunas Ilgauskas played in his entire career. 

Vucevic also average a near-career-high field goal percentage last season, despite no real reason for it. This was not a historically great Bulls offense creating space for him, so if we bake in regression to the mean on his field goal percentage, he should easily be under 17.5 points per game.

Vucevic also has a very low ceiling, so it is unlikely that he will blow past this number; whereas, the floor for a 33-year-old big who can’t really play defense is a dwindling role on the team and an incredibly easy under.

Luka Doncic to Average 32+ Points per Game +220 (FanDuel)

We’ll end with what looks like the most basic pick, but it’s one I like. Doncic cleared this just last season, posting a ludicrous 32.4 points per game. I don’t see him dropping that half-point per game to miss this prop at a near-70% rate.

It’s worth noting that he too had a career-high field goal percentage, but even if we regress it, it only shaves off about a point, and getting +220 makes FanDuel a far superior place for a Doncic over than the other books.

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Doncic appears to be entering the season in good shape, thanks to the FIBA World Cup, and although he sometimes plays himself outof shape (shouts Matt Moore), the league trends of pace and top point scoring totals going up and up and up lend this some wiggle room.

Finally, although Doncic now has Kyrie Irving to share the scoring load with, Doncic actually averaged a hair higher in terms of points per game with Irving in town, in an admittedly minuscule sample (six games they both played in).

Pick: Luka Doncic to Average 32+ Points Per Game +220

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