Head coach JJ Redick landed himself a brand new wing defender over the weekend when the Los Angeles Lakers acquired Dorian Finney-Smith from the Brooklyn Nets. He was sent with guard Shake Milton in exchange for D’Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis and three second-round picks.
The addition of Finney-Smith gives the Lakers three legitimate wings behind the superstar duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. While Jarred Vanderbilt is still on the mend, L.A. has both Rui Hachimura and Finney-Smith filling the role of 3-and-D big wing. This alters the way Redick can piece together the Lakers rotation in a hugely positive way.
The Lakers coach spoke about how Finney-Smith’s addition can benefit the team both alongside other wings and on his own.
“To me, it gives us an opportunity,” Redick said. “We’ve consistently started games with a 3-5 switching group with Rui, LeBron and AD. It gives us optionality once one of those guys is off the floor to then continue to sort of siwtch that group, which again, certain teams and certain personnel takes them out of just natural pick-and-roll, natural DHO flow. You know, the switching can be disruptive at different times.
“With Vando and Dorian, particularly with the bigger wings, bigger perimeter players, mobile fours that are scorers, it gives us a primary defender for those guys. We’ve asked a lot of Rui at times. we’ve certainly asked a lot of Max at times, we’ve asked a lot to start the season from AR. So in terms of matchups, it just gives us more options and it gives us more flexibility.”
The Lakers have typically had to use Vanderbilt and Hachimura to guard opposing team’s best small players with a lack of elite guard defenders. But the recent emergence of Max Christie may allow Finney-Smith to play a more natural defensive role.
“Yeah, I think the emergence of Max, Vando hopefully being back soon, I don’t envision, whether he is off the bench or starting, like, Dorian having to chase around the Tyrese Maxies of the world for 35 minutes. Again, he’s a guy who’s guarded multiple positions, on-ball players, bigger wings, sometimes even centers. So it just gives us a little bit more flexibility with how we want to match up and how we want to defend certain teams.”
Finney-Smith is also the type of player that can switch all the way up to a five in small doses, as he did in Brooklyn. Redick spoke about if that’s something L.A. might continue given they still lack any significant center depth.
“Yeah, there’s certain times you can look at sort of Rui, LeBron, hell, you can look at Rui, LeBron, Vando, and Dorian out there with another ball-handler, creator in a switchable small group with, outside of Vando, like, elite spacing right there. And that gives us, again, more stuff in the toolbox,” Redick said. “I think outside of the, I think it was the Detroit game where we were a minus-18 in the small-ball five minutes, like the small ball lineups have been really good for us.”
The Lakers having just one extra player to be versatile and switchable with could drastically change how they look on a game-to-game basis. A 3-and-D wing has long been one L.A.’s biggest needs, and now that they have one, they can start to address other pressing matters if they are seriously trying to contend in 2025.
LeBron James gives thoughts on Lakers after trade
Dorian Finney-Smith and Shake Milton undoubtedly make the Lakers a better team than they were before the trade. And they were able to do so without parting ways with significant assets. But LeBron’s assessment of the Lakers is that they still have work to do to compete for a championship.
“Right now, I think we’re a very good team. I think we have a chance to compete with anybody in the league. Are we at a championship level? Can we win a championship right now? No, I don’t think so. But that’s good because we have so much room for improvement, and we just added two new guys as well in DoeDoe (Dorian-Finney Smith) and Shake [Milton]. So we’ll see how we incorporate those guys. That should be fun as well. I’m happy that they’re here. But we’ll see.”
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