Nice little start to the season yesterday with Sengun and Kuminga clearing their assists and points totals respectively. Onto the next.
Nets @ Hornets - Moussa Diabate over 7.5 points
We kick things off with the big Moose, who is primed to stake his claim as the Hornets starting center this season. With Williams and Richards gone, the Hornets are spending very little cash at the rive, with Diabate to battle it out for minutes alongside Mason Plumlee and rookie Ryan Kalkbrenner. Kalkbrenner will almost certainly be at the bottom of that list, and based on the pre-season Diabate should be at the top of it. He had a few strong outings in the pre-season, putting up 11+ points in the three games in which he played decent minutes - which from all reports, he should be doing ahead of Plumlee this season. Diabate is no world-beater but he's shown some development in the two years in the league and if he regularly plays 25 minutes or so as expected, should be looking at averaging closer to double-figures than this 7.5 number. I expect this to be a number which gets adjusted over his next few games as it becomes apparent that Diabate will be playing a comfortably bigger role than in the past this season.
Note: Just as I've finished writing this, the Hornets have put out their starting lineup with Kalkbrenner starting. Not ideal but I've already placed the bet so will leave it in - think there is still a good chance Diabate gets 20+ minutes and can get this number.
Raptors @ Hawks - Gradey Dick over 7.5 points
This is a very low number for Mr. Dick. He averaged 14.4 points in 29 minutes last season, just his second in the league, and while those numbers will likely drop with the return of a couple of Raptors starters, dropping it all the way down to 7.5 is overkill by the bookies. Dick might only get around 20 minutes tonight, but even so he's a better than even money chance of going past this number. He can admittedly be a low floor high ceiling player, which I typically don't love for over/unders, but this is so low that I'm happy to bank on him going past it even if he has an off shooting night. Dick is more than just a three-point shooter, and what's more, given he'll be playing predominantly with the bench unit he'll likely play a larger role on offense than he would were he playing with the starters. With this game also likely to be a fast-paced, high-scoring one, he should get ample opportunity in fairly limited minutes to scoot past this number
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