Four days after Dorian Finney-Smith joined the Lakers, JJ Redick made fun of something his new player said, using the kind of dismissive voice a teenager uses when they repeat something they thought be stupid.
A day later, after the Lakers’ victory over the Hawks, Redick called his first half performance “terrible.” And last week, after the Lakers dominated the Celtics, Redick, in a compliment, said that two shot attempts by Finney-Smith “felt like he’d never touched a basketball before.”
A bit harsh, right?
“Yeah,” Finney-Smith said. “I like it.”
Eh?
“I don’t know, I don’t respect people who are more honest with me,” Finney-Smith told the Times. “That’s how you can tell they really care. And that’s who my mom is.
“…She doesn’t play. She doesn’t. “
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There’s no sugarcoating with Finney-Smith, a player who is helping transform the Lakers’ identity in his first month with the team. And there’s nothing to say the coach can’t compete with the texts he’ll get from his mom after a few bad games in a row.
“She said I feel like bulls–Titer with energy because it’s something you can control. She’ll tell me,” Finney-Smith said with a chuckle Saturday after the Lakers beat the Warriors. “…. Like now she’ll say “you don’t have any offensive rebounds.” »
She’s serious. At least Redick said some of his slander was in jest.
“It’s easier to have a guy in the locker room that you can do it to. Because I really think it’s good for the group. The group knows I’m obviously joking. He knows I’m joking,” Redick said. “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 a shared experience.
“I know who he is, I know how he’s wired and he can take it. And it’s all great fun. I think he knows from day one what we need from him. And he did it at a very high level. “
Heading into the NBA trade deadline on February 6, Finney-Smith’s impact on the Lakers has been both tangible and intangible, with the veteran giving the Lakers defensive tenacity and three-point shooting on the field and galvanizing the presence in their locker room where he is already becoming a favorite.
This is a model for any future moves the Lakers make, finding a player who aligns with the style they want to play and the culture they are trying to create.
“The ultimate glue guy,” said Shake Milton.
Finney-Smith’s defense Thursday on Jayson Tatum and his work Saturday against the Warriors gave the Lakers things they simply didn’t have before their trade for him. He closes out aggressively on three-point shooters. He repeatedly tries to break through the ball when guarding an attacker. He is lightly maintained on offense, always ready to shoot and always ready to hustle and defend when he has no contact.
And he’s never silent – calling coverages, cheering for his teammates, anything but silent.
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“I try to be an energy giver. So I won’t shut up. I’m just talking. And I’m going to make sure you hear my voice as much as possible,” Finney-Smith said. “And it can’t be [LeBron James] And [Anthony Davis] talk. They are the ones who have to make the decisions. They have a lot of things [to handle]. So the rest of us can be the energy givers. »
And it was contagious.
“The speech is really contagious and I think the tenacity. This is what I was really getting at a few weeks ago when I talked about the leadership component. Yeah. We’re all leaders,” Redick said. … “Max Christie, just because you’re 21 doesn’t mean you can’t lead in some way. And for me, it’s like Dorian. His version of Leading seems different from [Austin Reaves’] Leading version, [which] It looks different from LeBron’s version of Leading. And I think the most important thing is… it’s not a shade to anyone else. That’s not a knock on anyone else in the NBA. But Doe is comfortable with who he is – as the player, the person. And in my experience… people who are like that, people gravitate towards that. People want to follow that. That’s what the doe is.
James said Finney-Smith is “exactly what we needed.” Reaves said the veteran has been nothing but “fantastic.”
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Since his debut on Dec. 31, the Lakers have been 51 points better than their opponents in Finney-Smith’s minutes – the best mark on the Lakers – even though five players have played more minutes.
And that’s only part of its value.
“You could forget about the basketball side. His energy, his personality. You could tell from the day he walked into the locker room that he was a winning mentality guy. So any time you bring in a guy like that – him and Shake are both the same way. They care about winning and anything they can do to help us win,” Reaves said. “So when you bring the positives of what he does on the basketball court, it makes him even better. The long, versatile defender who can make open shots plays the game the right way. You can go on and on, but I really think what I like most about him is the personality
“He’s a selfless guy, cares about everyone, wants to win, and overall he’s a really, really good guy.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.