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Golden State at Las Vegas, WNBA – Las Vegas will be without Chennedy Carter, a guard who has averaged 17.5 points per game despite coming off the bench. The Aces had their second lowest point output (79 points) without Carter in their last game against Los Angeles.
Golden State has gone over their total in their last 6 games, and the market total of 169.5 is the highest for Golden State all season. However, both Golden State and Las Vegas have top five defenses by points per possession allowed.
There is value in Golden State at Las Vegas under 169.5, a game that tips at 3pm Eastern on Saturday.
NBA player prop – Spurs rookie Dylan Harper hurt his groin in game 2 of the Western conference finals against the Thunder. He didn’t play that well in the next two games as he recovered but has averaged 15.3 points in the four games since.
Picked second overall in last year’s NBA draft, Harper looks like the best player for the Spurs with his quickness and strength. It is reasonable to expect Harper to improve over his rookie season. Even with the modest assumptions of 28 minutes and his 0.52 points per minute from the regular season, this projects 14.6 points for Harper.
There is value in Dylan Harper over 12.5 points, -128 available at FanDuel for Monday night’s game at New York.
Player based World Cup model – I’ve been working on a model that uses the player ratings at FC 26, the video game from EA Sports. They use an army of 400 employees and coaches along with Opta xG data to come up with these player ratings.
Based on a projected starting eleven players, this model gives the following rankings of the top contenders:
- France, 85.8 even without William Saliba.
- Spain, 85.3 with Lamine Yamal, who might not play in the group stage due to injury.
- Portugal, 85.0
- Brazil, 84.8 without Rodrygo.
- Germany 84.5 assuming Manuel Neuer as the keeper.
- Argentina 83.7
- England 83.5
- Netherlands, 83.5
The player model doesn’t make a huge distinction between these top eight teams. Unfortunately, it does rate the United States at 77.8 with Chris Richards (more on this critical player below), which unfortunately seems right.
USMNT player analysis – Ryan O’Hanlon had an excellent article about the individual players on the USMNT. While he ranked the players based on quality of their club and quantity of playing time, his insights are more useful. For example,
- Chris Richards. The center back ranks 4th, but Crystal Palace has underachieved this season for two reasons. First, they lost a key player (center back Marc Guehi) in January, and they have rested players because of a deep run to win a European competition (Conference League). Richards is also dealing with torn ligaments in his ankle, and he won’t play in a friendly against Germany on Saturday, a huge problem for the US defense.
- Folarin Balogun. The most important attribute for a striker is the creation of goal scoring opportunities. In the top French league, Balogun was one of the top players in xG (expected goals) created. While he creates a lot of opportunities, Balogun finishes at an average rate, which means many missed shots.
The entire article is worth reading, and Ryan’s work at ESPN is a must follow during the World Cup.
Also, check out my minute video on Ryan’s thoughts on Christian Pulisic, who broke his 2026 goal drought against Senegal last weekend.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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