Fish's Slippery Player Picks - 10/25 (YTD: 6-1)

After getting halfway there in the first few minutes, Kyle Filipowski nearly managed to miss the 6-rebound mark we needed him to hit, but fortunately he got there in the last quarter to take our record to a handy 6-1 on the season. A couple for today with a couple more I'm thinking about, but will likely just keep it to these two.

Bulls @ Magic - Patrick Williams over 2.5 rebounds 

This one is well over even money for me (at $2.45, or I guess +145 for most of you) but I'll include it anyway because I think it's a ridiculous line. By this stage in his career it's pretty clear that Williams is probably not going to be the superstar the Bulls had hoped he would be, but 2.5 rebounds at + money is very low. He's averaged bang on around 4 boards per game in roughly 25 minutes every season of his career to date, has had a solid pre-season, and importantly, is fit and healthy for once. In the pre-season he was playing anywhere from 16-25 minutes, and he'll likely get similar numbers to start the regular season - which should be enough for him to get 3 rebounds more often than not. He only managed 17 minutes in the Bulls' season opener but still picked up 4 boards, and that was with Dosunmu and Huerter playing well off the bench - Huerter in particular is a bit hit and miss and when he's the latter it will probably open up a few more minutes for Williams, so I expect that 17 to be at the low-end of how much court time our guy will get. There's always a bit more randomness in low lines for bench guys, but on the weight of averages I like our chances.

Hornets @ Sixers - Moussa Diabate over 6.5 points

I had the Diabate over a couple of days ago, and admittedly was wrong in assuming he would be the Hornets starting center, with rookie Ryan Kalkbrenner getting the nod instead. But those two shared the load amongst one another with Plumlee not getting on the floor, and Diabate still played 21 minutes and picked up 13 points. Despite that, his line has dropped a point to 6.5. Obviously it's not ideal that he doesn't appear to be starting, but it still seems as though he and Kalkbrenner will go close to splitting the minutes - the Hornets aren't going to play their rookie 35 minutes a game at the five, and based on game 1 he's likely to get himself into foul trouble fairly often anyway, as rookie bigs often do. Diabate is a flawed player but he does actually have a few moves, and the Hornets fast-paced game style means that space will often open up down low and there should be ample opportunity for drop-off passes at the rim, which he's pretty capable of finishing. In what should be 20+ minutes of game time, Diabate should go past this again in what looks like a season of improvement for him. 

Best of luck team.

Thanks bro, i took Diabate too 

BOL TO US 

hits 9 min into 1st qtr Fish! good job

Ok , diabate have to shoot at 2nd half

One more for the day. 
Sund @ Nuggets - Jonas Valanciunas over 4.5 rebounds

Valanciunas is obviously going to generally only play the minutes Jokic sits, so the 12 minutes he picked up in his first game of the season is probably around the mark. Still, in that short time he should be absolutely crashing the boards against second units, and giving this number a nudge most games. What makes me like this even more though is that the Nuggets should pump the Suns - they’re a 13-point favourite. That means there is a good chance jokic sits a large portion of the last q, so even if Jonas can’t get his 5 boards in his limited early minutes he should get a crack late in the game. 

Nice work