The Los Angeles Lakers had very clear needs throughout the entire last offseason and when the 2024-25 season began. They needed another big man that could both play with Anthony Davis and back him up, and they needed more wing depth. The latter was especially true with Jarred Vanderbilt having such an uncertain status.
General manager Rob Pelinka said he would need about 30 games to truly evaluate what the team needs most, but many of the rumors suggested it would be a big man like Jonas Valanciunas of the Washington Wizards. When that 30-game mark came and went, it was Brooklyn Nets forward Dorian Finney-Smith that ultimately ended up being the target.
The Lakers traded three of their five available second-round picks, along with D’Angelo Russell and Maxwell Lewis, to land Finney-Smith. This makes their toolshed of assets limited in pursuing other trades. And while a better backup center than Jaxson Hayes or Christian Koloko remains a need, that has become less likely with the Finney-Smith trade with the team prioritizing other things, according to Dan Woike of The L.A. Times:
There had been some early-season consensus that the Lakers would be aggressive in their pursuit of a center to either play with Anthony Davis or behind him, but the Finney-Smith acquisition makes that seem unlikely.
Long linked to a player like Washington’s Jonas Valanciunas, a target for the team this summer in free agency, it’s become clear that the Lakers’ needs to get bigger aren’t as important to them as their desires to get faster, more athletic and more dynamic.
The Lakers are 2-1 since acquiring Finney-Smith, losing to the team with the best record in the NBA in the Cleveland Cavaliers, but then piecing together convincing wins over the Portland Trail Blazers and Atlanta Hawks. Their next big test comes on Sunday evening against the Houston Rockets, as a win could bring them within one game of the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference.
If they get that close without trading for a center, perhaps it convinces L.A. that it was never truly a need. Or, the closer they get to being a legitimate contender, the more it may convince them to make moves that put them squarely into that category, instead of barely on the outside looking in.
Dorian Finney-Smith thinks Lakers can be top team
It will take some time for Finney-Smith to figure out everything, but the Lakers will do everything to make the transition as smooth as possible. And while he hasn’t been here long, Finney-Smith feels the Lakers can be a very good team as long as their defense is locked in.
“If we get stops and get out and run, we got guys that can, we got LeBron who causes so much trouble in transition, he makes some of the craziest passes that gets through guys’ hands,” Finney-Smith noted. “But if we keep teams close to 100 points, we’re one of the top teams in the league. I don’t see why we can’t. We got whatever you need. A couple games ago, we got open looks, we just didn’t make shots. So like Coach said, just keep shooting it with confidence so that’s all we can do.”
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