The Chicago Bulls begin their season on the road Wednesday as betting underdogs to the Miami Heat.
The Chicago Bulls begin their 2022-23 campaign in Miami on Wednesday night, and while the Bulls have a few injury concerns out of the gate, the buzz and excitement is cautious, but alive. With a season win total projection of 41.5, Chicago will look to build off of a winning season in 2021-22, and will look to find their way into the postseason for a second consecutive season.
As far as these blogs go, I will aim to put out a best bet for each and every game rain or shine, doom or boom. It won’t be a perfect 82-0, but I hope I can bring some value and entertainment to these games, and optimistically that starts tonight! Best of luck this NBA season, and go Bulls!!
Ayo Dosunmu Over 3.5 Assists (Sportsbook odds may vary)
To open the season we are heading to Ayo Dosunmu’s assist prop as he takes on the starting point guard role in Lonzo Ball’s absence. Taking prop bets in the NBA can be a tough market to find edges in, and typically betting on the biggest starts in the league can be especially tough because the most popular players in the world often have their numbers inflated.
For example, often times guys like Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Giannis, etc, are going to have point total overs two or three points higher than their season average because the average person looking to bet on these games are going to take the over no matter what. The same can be said for our Chicago Bulls’ stars Zach LaVine and Demar Derozan on certain nights. This isn’t to say that you should never play those guys, but to illustrate that it can be tough to find an advantage.
In contrast to the stars of the NBA, when you are dealing with role players such as this, sportsbooks will set the totals right around the actual averages of the player. That’s exactly what we are looking at tonight in Dosunmu’s case. Ayo’s point, assist, and rebound betting totals are all right around his averages from last season, however, the giant edge that we have in today’s case, is that Dosunmu’s box score production is drastically skewed depending on his role within the each game.
His 2021-22 season average finished at 8.8ppg, right around tonight’s point total of 8.5, but as a starter over a sample of 40 games, that number jumps to 10.9. I would honestly be interested in a play on that prop as well, but in my opinion the better spot is the jump in assists. A season average of 3.3 assists last year falls just under his assist total tonight of 3.5, but in a starting role, tallied 5.4 assists per game for last year’s Chicago Bulls.
While it’s unclear how many minutes we’ll see him play, a starting role along with some team injuries should at least expect him to play 28-plus minutes against Miami. With recent news of Zach LaVine’s absence from tonight’s game you would expect Alex Caruso to grab some solid minutes health permitting, along with the recent addition of Goran Dragic, but it’s reasonable to assume that Ayo will see significant time on the court, whether this game is a tight contest or not.
These odds and potentially even the numbers on these props could change throughout the day so make sure you do some shopping, but I feel strongly that Dosunmu gets to that five assist number at minimum, so if this rises to 4.5, go ahead and take it at plus-money.
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