LaMelo Ball is featured as the best bet for Tuesday’s seven-game NBA slate.
The pregame narrative: Ball is cooking and I like him to stay hot versus the Phoenix Suns. I also have plays on centres Rudy Gobert and Bam Adebayo.
Check out the best NBA prop bets for Jan. 7.
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Best bet: Ball over 12.5 reb/ast (+100)
The Charlotte Hornets star gets a Phoenix Suns team that doesn’t rebound the ball well on a back-to-back.
Ball is a difficult player to contain on the best of nights, let alone on a rest disadvantage.
He has big scoring upside in this game, but I also like him to pile up assists and rebounds and think there’s better value playing him on this market.
He’s averaging this exact line on the season and has put up some monster numbers of late.
Ball fell short in his last contest and landed on 12 the game before that, but he cleared this in seven straight ahead of that.
For the season, he’s 14-9 against this number.
Key stat: Ball has averaged 13-plus rebounds/assists in each of the last three seasons.
Quick picks
Gobert over 21.5 points/rebounds (-124): Gobert’s production is sporadic and he’s not a heavy usage player on the offensive end. So there’s some risk here.
He’s turned in clunkers in three of his last five games, falling well short of this line. But he’s smashed it in the other two and has an appealing opponent tonight.
The New Orleans Pelicans allow the most rebounds per game to centres, per Betting Pros, and surrender the sixth-most points to the position.
And one of the things Gobert does particularly well is rebound the ball.
He’s averaging 10.5 per game, the 10th consecutive season he’s been in double figures. The 7-foot-1 veteran is coming off an 18-rebound performance and had 15 four games before that.
On top of the rebounding upside, Gobert operates in high-scoring areas in the paint and is efficient. He’s contributing 10.1 points per game on 61.8% shooting from the field.
So all we’re asking is for him to just clear his season-long average in a plus matchup.
Adebayo over 15.5 points (-132): The Miami Heat are coming off a gruelling double overtime loss but the show must go on.
This is a tough spot for the team, though I like Adebayo to clear this modest number.
His scoring is way down this season (16.1/game) but Jimmy Butler is no longer someone he needs to share the ball with on offence, which should only help his scoring outlook for the rest of the season.
Adebayo averaged 19-plus points in three straight seasons coming into this year.
He has two ugly four-point games in his last 10, but has topped this line seven times over that stretch.
Getting this price on this line is not something you’ll see often for the all-star centre.
Picks made at 1:12 p.m. ET on 01/07/2025.
Chris joined NorthStar Gaming from Covers.com where he was a publishing editor and wrote betting content. Before that, he was the sports editor at VICE Canada, worked for theScore and covered the Blue Jays for MLB.com. In addition to filling out the lineup card each day for the editorial team, Chris writes frequently himself, primarily on the NBA and MLB.