Prop Points | August 13, 2026

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is Prop Points on VSiN, the SportsBetting Network.

**Jeff Erickson** (0:11)
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Prop Points. Good morning if you're on the West Coast like I am. Good afternoon if you're on the East Coast. Jeff Erickson here with Nick Whalen from rotowire.com. This is Prop Points here on VSiN. We have got a busy NFL-centric show for you today. We're going to do some preseason game betting preview for tonight. We've got Solomon Wilcots joining us, Ian Hartitz from Rotowire is joining us. We will talk a little baseball. It's the Field of Dreams night tonight, so we'll talk about that game coming up in the final segment of the show. Welcome everybody if you are streaming with us on YouTube, or if you're listening wherever you get your podcast later on. We're happy to have you on here. Make sure you download that Prop Points podcast on Apple Spotify. Nick, let's start off with the FedEx St. Jude Championship, however. It is the start of the PGA Tour playoffs.
We can talk about some of the starters getting off here.
We got Scotty out on the course already. There's not a clear favorite like there usually is heading into these tournaments, at least in terms of winning the overall playoffs, because there isn't one dominant player this year. But Jordan Spieth is the story so far. Five birdies in a seven-hole span.

**Nick Whalen** (1:21)
Jordan Spieth, your solo leader through 17 right now. So he's on 18 as we speak. He's at five under Michael Thorb-Jornsen. Is at four under Tommy Fleetwood, who got off to a nice start. Also hanging on at four under, and Gary Woodland, just moving to four under as well. We got Oberg. We got Victor Hovland sitting at three under.
A little bit of a sluggish start for Scotty Scheffler. He's one under right now. Did have a bogey at 15 Rory McIlroy, who was just in some trouble hitting out of the pine straw. He's at even par. And we are still about 30 minutes away from some of the other big names. Alexander Morkawa, Cameron Young, teeing off in some of the final groups. Now, as usual, Jeff, the odds makers don't overreact typically to what we see in round one. Scotty Scheffler is still your odds on favorite plus 670 to win the tournament at DraftKings. Tommy Fleetwood's hanging around 10 to 1 Hovland and Oberg around 15 to 1 But not a lot of market faith right now in Jordan Spieth, who I believe does not have a top 10 to his name, by the way, on the year. But despite leading this tournament right now coming out hot plus 20 50 So plus a little short of 21 to 1 That was a really bad way of me to phrase that. But odds makers not exactly pushing them up the board quite yet.

**Jeff Erickson** (2:34)
Yeah.
If you were paying attention last week to the Wyndham, Spieth made a putt on 18 on Cut Friday there just to make the cut at the Wyndham. If he doesn't make that, he's not even in this tournament. He was that close to not making to the playoffs there. Instead, he does got a decent enough finish to make it to qualify for the playoffs. Now he's off to a great start today. We'll see if he can maintain. Odds are probably against that continuing, but still great start for Jordan Spieth. Let's talk though about the big news in the NBA. Big news because of the stature of the player that we're talking about here.
Russell Westbrook retiring after 18 years in the NBA.

**Nick Whalen** (3:12)
Yeah. Big news that came through yesterday.
To me, surprising news. Obviously, Russell Westbrook is almost 38 years old. He's 18 years into his career, but we continue to see a lot of these guys from the all the way back to the 3 draft with LeBron. But Kevin Durant and even Chris Paul still playing last year. A lot of these names that have been with us for almost two decades, still hanging on and still holding up pretty well physically. That's what surprised me about this decision. I know Russell Westbrook was maybe going to have a little bit of trouble finding a good fit in terms of a team next season, but was still moving extremely well for a soon to be 38-year-old. We know he's a dog. We know he's one of the great competitors in recent NBA history. Still put up 15, 7, and 5 last year, played almost 30 minutes per game. Reportedly, Jeff, he had some interest from Washington, from Sacramento. I'm a little surprised that he didn't take a bite at the Apple, especially with Washington, a team that has real expectations this year. But overall, I think this sparks a look back at what is a very complicated player, not because of anything off the court, but because of the criticism that he faced for stat padding, for the lack of defense, for stubbornness, unwilling to change his game as the NBA evolved, and then of course, the inefficiency that plagued him throughout his career. With all that said though, Jeff, this is undoubtedly one of the defining players of his era, an extremely unique player, an extremely memorable player, NBA top 75, no doubter, rightfully so on that list, and truly one of the best statistical resumes we have ever seen. And I'm interested to see how his career will age because the stats are unassailable, but we also scrutinize players more harshly now in the analytics era than we ever have.