The Los Angeles Lakers had a chance to bring back forward Dorian Finney-Smith to the team, but past issues blocked them from seriously looking at him. Finney-Smith ended the 2024-2025 season as one of the most important role players on the team.
Most pundits expected him to stay with the Lakers since he was one of Luka Doncic’s favorite teammates during their time on the Dallas Mavericks. The Houston Rockets recently traded DFS to the Charlotte Hornets for an extremely cheap package.
Lakers insider Jovan Buha shared the following about why he heard the Lakers and Finney-Smith didn’t consider reuniting:
“I think the ship has sailed with DFS and the Los Angeles Lakers organization. I think there was some real bad blood last summer, with how the entire situation was handled, in terms of some of the intel that leaked out, and some things with DFS’s health and injury track record. I will be pretty surprised if he and his team are willing to look past that.”
Finney-Smith and his camp felt that the Lakers intentionally tried to hurt his free agent status in the league by leaking information about his injury concerns. The Lakers wanted to retain DFS on a cheaper deal than he desired. Houston ended up paying Finney-Smith, but he held a grudge from the Lakers’ allegedly shady tactic.
Would Dorian Finney-Smith Have Helped Lakers?
The sole season for Finney-Smith in Houston failed badly with the worst season of his career. Finney-Smith averaged just 3.3 points on 33% shooting and 27% three-point shooting from the field to lose his spot in the rotation.
Additions of Kevin Durant, Clint Capela, and DFS were made with the mindset of contending for an NBA Championship last season. Finishing fifth in the Western Conference and getting eliminated by an injured team led by the older LeBron James made the season a failure.
The Lakers could have benefited from bringing back Finney-Smith due to his track record as a three and D player. Doncic’s chemistry with DFS may have fixed some of the flaws from last season, but you can’t argue with results. Finney-Smith is getting older and last season may have been the start of the end of his NBA career.
Lakers Shady Tactic May Be Proven Right
Any team trying to hurt their player’s value to other teams will risk disdain from the player and make other players mistrust them. Finney-Smith’s camp not having any love for the Lakers is how most would feel in this same scenario.
However, it appears that the Lakers may have been right about DFS all along. Past injuries and the aging process could be the reasons that Finney-Smith struggled so badly last season. Houston attached second round picks to DFS solely to get him off the roster ahead of next season.
Despite the bad blood blocking the Lakers from bringing Finney-Smith back, they may be better off without him. Role players Jake LaRavia, Quentin Grimes, Collin Sexton, and others just hold more value than DFS does around the NBA right now. Rob Pelinka is not losing any sleep over Finney-Smith never wanting to play for the Lakers again.
Lakers Refused To Bring Back Former Player Due To Bad Blood