While the Los Angeles Lakers’ blockbuster trade for Luka Doncic stole all the headlines, they made another under-the-radar move this past season when they acquired Dorian Finney-Smith from the Brooklyn Nets.
The Lakers have been looking for a quality 3-and-D wing for a while now and Finney-Smith fit that bill with L.A. only needing to send D’Angelo Russell and second-round picks back to Brooklyn.
Despite not putting up big stats, Finney-Smith played a huge role in the Lakers winning 50 games and earning the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference. He did that despite playing through a lingering ankle issue that began in Brooklyn.
To finish out the year, Finney-Smith often found himself sitting out back-to-backs in order to keep his ankle as healthy as possible. Now that the season is over though, Finney-Smith underwent surgery on the left ankle to fix the issue, per Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
Los Angeles Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith underwent surgery on his left ankle and is expected to be able to participate in training camp ahead of the 2025-26 NBA season, sources told ESPN.
The procedure will allow the 31-year-old Finney-Smith to play pain free after cleaning up a lingering ankle injury that he fought to play through the last several seasons.
Addressing the ankle injury now is the right thing to do as Finney-Smith will have plenty of time for rest and rehab before the start of training camp at the end of September. The hope is that this surgery will fix the issue and it will not linger into the 2025-26 season.
Despite the expectation that Finney-Smith will be ready for training camp though, his future with the Lakers is currently up in the air. The 31-year-old has a $15.4 million player option for the 2025-26 season that he has to decide on by June 29. He is currently eligible for a contract extension so can sign anytime before that.
If he doesn’t sign an extension and declines his player option though, then Finney-Smith will become an unrestricted free agent. But that scenario seems unlikely as there is clearly mutual interest on the forward returning to L.A., especially after the team brought in his former teammate and close friend in Doncic.
Dorian Finney-Smith reflects on first season with Lakers
Even though it didn’t end how they wanted it to, Dorian Finney-Smith enjoyed his first season with the Lakers and reflected on it after the team was eliminated.
“Being here has been amazing,” he said in his exit interview. “Making it to the 3-seed has been fun, Luka coming in February was a big surprise to many, especially me. Happy to be back with my dawg. Just mad right now that our season ended.”
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