While the New York Liberty remain title favorites and the Minnesota Lynx are pulling away in the standings, this WNBA season has a few underrated aspects.
The Golden State Valkyries deserve more credit for being an exceedingly competent expansion team, and the Dallas Wings may have the best rookie in recent league history.
The Valkyries’ most consistent piece and Wings’ star Paige Bueckers lead tonight's WNBA picks for Monday, July 7.
WNBA player prop bets for July 7
Kayla Thornton u13.5 Points (+110)
Paige Bueckers o19.5 Points (-105)
Alyssa Thomas o10.5 Assists (+125)
Today's best WNBA player props bets
Kayla Thornton Under 13.5 points (+110 at Caesars)
Calling a team “exceedingly competent” may not sound like praise, but an expansion team trending toward the playoffs deserves that description as praise. The Golden State Valkyries currently sit sixth in the standings, and it increasingly feels like a collapse would be necessary to miss the postseason.
Ten-year veteran Kayla Thornton is leading the way, posting career highs in points per game, rebounds per game, and steals per game.
Yet we doubt her tonight. She has been Golden State’s most consistent piece of offense, clearing this prop in seven of her last 10 games. But in the three games she fell short, Thornton went a combined 2-of-17 from deep, all within the last four games.
She is not shooting particularly well from deep this year, just 27.9% on 6.5 attempts per game. Even before her recent lull, Thornton was hitting only 28.4% of her 3-pointers on 6.8 attempts per game.
When she is missing, she is missing often, and that tends to be enough to doom Thornton’s scoring output.
Tonight, she faces the No. 4 defense in opponent 3-point percentage, foes making merely 31.7% of their deep shots against the Atlanta Dream, and the No. 1 stingiest in giving up looks from deep. Foes take just 19.3 shots from beyond the arc per game against Atlanta.
Thornton will shoot sparsely from deep tonight, and she likely will miss when she does shoot.
Paige Bueckers Over 19.5 points (-105 at Caesars)
At some point in the distant future, a certain segment of WNBA fans may need to acknowledge Paige Bueckers is the best player of the last couple of drafts. It may not be until the distant future because those fans are stubborn, but Bueckers is already suggesting that possible reality.
Bueckers has cleared this lofty prop in five of her last six games despite some relative shooting struggles. Hitting only 6-of-22 (27.3%) threes in those six games has been quite a fall from her 10-of-24 (41.7%) in the first eight games of her career. And yet, Bueckers has kept scoring.
Bueckers remains underrated, and that has created betting value on her.
Even against a team like the Phoenix Mercury with the No. 5 defensive rating in the WNBA, faith in Bueckers makes sense. She scored 23 against the Mercury on Thursday in an upset win, hitting 8-of-11 from the field including 2-of-4 from deep. She is simply too good to be contained.
Alyssa Thomas Over 10.5 assists (+125 at Caesars)
Yes, this is a hefty number. Hesitation is understandable. An assists prop at 10.5 is absurd.
But this is Alyssa Thomas. She is averaging 9.4 assists this season. With Kahleah Copper in the lineup, that climbs to 10.8 assists in six games.
This was the vision when Phoenix sought Thomas.
She has cleared this prop in three of six games alongside Copper, falling short on Thursday by just the hook. Copper is out in this rematch, but Thomas's trends still endorse this thought at such a plus-money price. Note: That was against the Dallas Wings on a night the Mercury shot terribly, hitting just 41.8% of their field goals. More should come tonight in this rematch.
Today’s WNBA games
Odds are correct at the time of publishing and are subject to change.
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