NBA First Basket Picks

The first basket model ranks every starter in tonight's NBA games by his chance to score the game's first points, on every game night.

What goes into it

• The opening tip: who jumps for each side and how often he wins it
• Each player's share of his team's shots and points early in games
• How often he has scored first before, pulled toward the average while the sample is small
• Tonight's opponent, on both ends of the floor

A first basket here means the first points of the game, so a free throw counts. That is how FanDuel settles its first basket market.

What's on the board

How it was tested

On the 2025-26 season, with the model fitted only on the seasons before it:

• its top pick in a game scored first 16.0% of the time, and one of its top 3 did 41.3% of the time;
• its nightly top 10 scored first 15.5% of the time, against 9.9% for every starter;
• the team it picked to score first did 56.1% of the time.

That is a likelihood ranking, and the books price the likely first scorers short too. Use the model's chance against the price, and shop the price.

Open today's First Basket board →