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 a prop play on Bam Adebayo.
Check out the best NBA prop bets for Jan. 7.
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Best bet: Ball over 11.5 reb/ast (-134)
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 16-7 against this number.
Key stat: Ball has averaged 13-plus rebounds/assists in each of the last three seasons.
Quick picks
Adebayo over 16.5 points (-118): 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.