4 days after Dorian Finney-Smith joined the Lakers, JJ Redick mocked one thing his latest participant had mentioned, utilizing the sort of dismissive voice an adolescent makes use of once they repeat one thing they thought was silly.
Someday later, following the Lakers’ win over the Hawks, Redick referred to as his first-half efficiency “awful.” And final week after the Lakers dominated the Celtics, Redick, throughout a praise, mentioned Finney-Smith’s two shot makes an attempt “looked like he’d never touched a basketball before.”
Kinda harsh, proper?
“Yeah,” Finney-Smith mentioned. “I like that.”
Huh?
“I just, I don’t know, I respect people that’s more honest with me,” Finney-Smith advised The Instances. “That’s how you can tell they really care. And that’s who my mama is.
“… She doesn’t play. She doesn’t.”
There’s no sugarcoating with Finney-Smith, a participant who’s serving to remodel the Lakers’ id in his first month with the staff. And nothing the coach can say can compete with the texts he’ll get from his mom after a number of unhealthy video games in a row.
“She’s said I feel like I’m bulls—ting with energy because that’s something you can control. She’ll tell me,” Finney-Smith mentioned with a chuckle Saturday after the Lakers beat the Warriors. “…. Like now, she’ll say ‘You got no offensive rebounds.’”
She’s critical. A minimum of Redick mentioned a few of his slander is in jest.
“It makes it easier to have a guy in the locker room that you can do that to. Cause I actually think it’s good for the group. The group knows I’m obviously joking. He knows I’m joking,” Redick mentioned. “We played together, it was brief. But we both grew up in Virginia. We both played public high school basketball. We both played for [AAU coach] Boo Williams. We had like a shared experience.
“I know that he’s, I know how he’s wired and he can take it. And it’s all in good fun. I think he knows from day one what we’ve needed from him. And he’s done it at a really high level.”
Lakers ahead Dorian Finney-Smith shoots towards the Houston Rockets on Jan. 5.
(Ashley Landis / Related Press)
Because the NBA commerce deadline approaches on Feb. 6, Finney-Smith’s affect on the Lakers has been each tangible and intangible, the veteran giving the Lakers defensive toughness and three-point taking pictures on the courtroom and galvanizing presence of their locker room the place he’s already change into a favourite.
It’s a template for any future strikes the Lakers make, discovering a participant who aligns with the model they need to play and the tradition they’re making an attempt to create.
“The ultimate glue guy,” Shake Milton mentioned.
Finney-Smith’s protection Thursday on Jayson Tatum and his work Saturday towards the Warriors have given the Lakers issues they only didn’t have earlier than they traded for him. He aggressively closes out on three-point shooters. He tries repeatedly to poke the ball free when he’s guarding an attacker. He’s low-maintenance on offense, all the time able to shoot and all the time prepared to hustle again and defend when he doesn’t get a contact.
And he’s by no means silent — calling out coverages, cheering teammates, simply something however quiet.
“I try to be an energy giver. So I just don’t shut up. I just talk. And I’m gonna make sure you hear my voice as much as I can,” Finney-Smith mentioned. “And it can’t be [LeBron James] and [Anthony Davis] doing the talking. They’re the ones who gotta make the decisions. They got a lot of stuff [to handle]. So the rest of us can be the energy givers.”
And it’s been contagious.
“The talk is really contagious and I think the toughness. That’s what I was like really getting at a few weeks ago when I talked about the leadership component. Yeah. We all are leaders,” Redick mentioned. … “Max Christie, just because you’re 21 doesn’t mean you can’t lead in some way. And that to me is like Dorian leading. His version of leading looks different than [Austin Reaves’] version of leading, [which] looks different than LeBron’s version of leading. And I think the biggest thing is … this isn’t shade at anyone else. It’s not shade at anyone else in the NBA. But Doe is comfortable with who he is — like the player, the person. And in my experience… people that are like that, people gravitate towards that. People want to follow that. That’s what Doe is.”
James mentioned Finney-Smith is “exactly what we needed.” Reaves mentioned that the veteran has been nothing however “fantastic.”
Since his Dec. 31 debut, the Lakers have been 51 factors higher than their opponents in Finney-Smith’s minutes — the most effective score on the Lakers — despite the fact that 5 gamers have performed extra minutes.
And that’s simply part of his worth.
“You could forget the basketball side. His energy, his personality. You can tell from the day he got into the locker room that he was a win-first mentality guy. So anytime you bring a guy like that on — him and Shake are both the same way. They care about winning and whatever they can do to help us win,” Reaves mentioned. “So then when you bring the positives of what he does on the basketball court, that makes it even better. Long, versatile defender that can make open shots, plays the game the right way. You can go on and on, but I think really what I enjoy about him most is the personality
“He’s a selfless guy, cares about everybody, wants to win, and overall he’s a really, really good dude.”
