Lakers rave about Dorian Finney-Smith and his infectious ‘win-first’ energy

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Rockets forward Amen Thompson (1) shoots against Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith (17) in Houston on Jan. 5. (Ashley Landis / Associated Press)

Four days after Dorian Finney-Smith joined the Lakers, JJ Redick mocked something his newest player had said, using the kind of dismissive voice a teenager uses when they repeat something they thought was stupid.

One day later, following the Lakers’ win over the Hawks, Redick called his first-half performance “awful.” And last week after the Lakers dominated the Celtics, Redick, during a compliment, said Finney-Smith’s two shot attempts “looked like he’d never touched a basketball before.”

Kinda harsh, right?

“Yeah,” Finney-Smith said. “I like that.”

Huh?

“I just, I don’t know, I respect people that’s more honest with me,” Finney-Smith told The Times. “That’s how you can tell they really care. And that’s who my mama is.

“… She doesn’t play. She doesn’t.”

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There’s no sugarcoating with Finney-Smith, a player who’s helping transform the Lakers’ identity in his first month with the team. And nothing the coach can say can compete with the texts he’ll get from his mother after a few bad 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 said with a chuckle Saturday after the Lakers beat the Warriors. “…. Like now, she’ll say ‘You got no offensive rebounds.’”

She’s serious. At least Redick said some 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 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 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…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/lakers-rave-dorian-finney-smith-120046091.html

Author : LA Times

Publish date : 2025-01-27 12:00:00

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