Dorian Finney-Smith buys Lakers time and three other NBA trends that caught my eye

A fresh addition can commit to his new team sooner than usual. A former No. 1 pick has made a special connection. A reigning conference finalist is caught in the middle. And one player is boxing out giants with his face instead of his back.

Let’s open up the notebook to run through four trends that have caught my eye over the past week:

The signs of why the Lakers traded for Dorian Finney-Smith are already showing.

Yes, Finney-Smith is still easing into the lineup two games after Los Angeles traded D’Angelo Russell, Maxwell Lewis and three second-round picks for Shake Milton and him. And yes, he scored only three points over 24 minutes during Thursday’s win over the Trail Blazers. But there are already flashes of what he can do to help — and surely, those will become more common as he grows on the West Coast.

Look at this sequence he pulled off Thursday against Portland, when he thwarted explosive 21-year-old Shaedon Sharpe, then jogged into a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer:

The Lakers needed a plug-and-play wing, someone who could knock in a deep ball, provide length on the perimeter and stop someone like Sharpe on drives like the one above. They got one in Finney-Smith — and they did it without sacrificing any first-round picks.

Head coach J.J. Redick is already showing trust in the 6-7 veteran. Finney-Smith is coming off the bench, but he closed both halves of the Portland game.

The beauty of this trade isn’t only the players involved. It’s also the timing.

Los Angeles now has time to evaluate its renovated roster before the Feb. 6 trade deadline. Finney-Smith could change the team’s dynamic, spurring it to make another move over the coming weeks. The Lakers could realize they lost too much playmaking with Russell’s departure, only to swing a trade for a facilitator. They could realize it’s worthwhile to stand pat. They also get a month and a half with Finney-Smith before considering a decision about his future.

Finney-Smith can become a free agent after this season. He has a $15.4 million player option for 2025-26. But he also becomes eligible for an extension Feb. 12. If he fits as the Lakers expect him to, is it possible he never hits the market at all?

As The Athletic has covered previously, a free agent’s best chance at getting paid this summer is by his own team. Only a few organizations have meaningful cap room and most of them are uncompetitive. Finney-Smith is the ultimate player with value on a winning squad but without much on a losing one. In an environment where extensions are more common than ever, could Finney-Smith opt for one, too?

It’s possible, if he were to hit the open market this summer, he would not receive an offer higher than the mid-level exception, which projects to be worth $14.1 million in 2025-26 salary.

Is there a compromise to be made come Feb. 12? Finney-Smith could decline the player option and take a multi-year deal that starts a tad below $15.4 million but a smidgen above the mid-level. Finney-Smith gets security. Los Angeles gets a malleable, winning player.

The Lakers have options. At least today, they are better than they were a week ago.

It’s amazing what a talented point guard can do with shooters around him. For the first time in Cade Cunningham’s four-year career, he’s experiencing that — and he’s playing like an All-Star.

After a 14-win season that felt like a four-win slog in 2023-24, the Pistons are sneakily one of the league’s most fun watches. They run. They out-hustle anyone. If a loose ball hits the court, so does a Detroit player. Isaiah Stewart has become a defensive maniac as a full-time center. Stewart is allowing only 45-percent shooting on dunks and layups when he’s the closest defender, the best figure in the league, according to Second Spectrum. Second place? Defensive Player of the Year favorite Victor Wembanyama at 47 percent.

And then there’s Cunningham, the leader of a team that has already won more games (15) than it did a season ago and that would be in the Play-In Tournament if the postseason began today.

The former No. 1 pick should be a surefire All-Star — and not just because of the counting numbers, which are overwhelming: 23.8 points, 6.8 rebounds and 9.7 assists. He’s also making his teammates better.

Cunningham will pulverize smaller players in the post. He can facilitate from there. His drives to the basket are some of the most physical in the league. He’s figuring out the nuances of his new teammates, too. The harmony specifically with Malik Beasley, an off-the-bench fireball, has been poetry.

Beasley often hangs in the weak-side corner as Cunningham swerves around screens. The point guard always has an eye on the opposite side. Because Cunningham is such a weapon heading downhill, he doesn’t even need to force himself all the way to the hoop before defenders collapse into the paint.

Look at this recent play against the Pacers, when Cunningham veers right after receiving a handoff from Stewart, peers at Beasley and waits for the shooter’s defender to stray too far. But this assist isn’t just on Cunningham’s improved playmaking. Beasley notices the passing lane still is not open so he relocates ever so slightly to his right — then Cunningham passes him open.

Cunningham has assisted 38 Beasley 3-pointers so far this season, the most on the team. Beasley, meanwhile, is shooting 46 percent from deep after receiving dishes from the 23-year-old.

Cunningham is a better creator than ever. He has floor spacers around him for the first time. What was formerly a weak point in his game, jacking 3s off the dribble, appears vastly improved. Thirty-nine NBA players average at least three pull-up jumpers a game this season, according to Second Spectrum. Cunningham ranks sixth in percentage on those shots: 40 percent.

Much is going right for Cunningham, including his new connection with Beasley.

Boxout of the year

Josh Hart went rogue — and now, we have a contender for boxout of the year. Here’s the scene:

The Wizards and Knicks are nearing the end of an overtime battle. Up three and guarding the ball, New York intentionally fouls Washington guard Malcolm Brogdon, sending him to the line for a couple of free throws with only 2.8 seconds remaining.

Brogdon hits the first. With the Wizards down two, he must intentionally miss the second and hope for an offensive board to give his team a chance.

Knicks head coach Tom Thibodeau predicted the type of thunk Brogdon would attempt.

“A lot of the teams now are trying to shoot the line drive to the front of the rim,” he said.

So Thibodeau rejiggered the Knicks’ strategy. After the first free throw, he subbed a big man, Precious Achiuwa, into the game for point guard Jalen Brunson. Achiuwa’s job was to block rookie big man Alex Sarr. On the other block were two Knicks, a behemoth, Karl-Anthony Towns, and forward OG Anunoby, who were responsible for one mammoth, Jonas Valančiūnas, who had wrecked the Knicks on the glass all night.

So what happened? Towns did not even care about going for the board, nor did Anunoby.

Watch Towns on the play below. He barely even looks at the basketball, turning his back to the rim instead of going for a typical butt-shoving box out, in the hopes of taking Valančiūnas out of the play.

That’s when Hart scampered in for the game-sealing board — even if he should not technically have been there.

“That’s probably not what I’m supposed to do. … I probably should stick with (Bilal Coulibaly at the 3-point arc) and make sure if they get a rebound they don’t have someone to pass to right there,” Hart said.

But someone has to recover the ball. It wouldn’t be a Hart rebound if he didn’t live on the edge. And this time, thanks to a Towns and Anunoby blockout that even a football referee may call a holding penalty, it worked.

The Pacers are pacing … sometimes

Every once in a while, a flash of the team that skipped to the conference finals months ago arrives.

A season after falling just one round short of the NBA Finals, the Pacers are meandering around .500. A once high-powered offense, the league’s fastest, don’t-give-a-damn attack from 2023-24, has turned mortal. Tyrese Haliburton is still not playing like prime Steve Nash after he began last season doing his best impersonation of the two-time MVP before an injury limited him the rest of the way. A defense with holes still has holes.

Last season, each Pacers performance was its own display of colors you had never before experienced. If the Beatles were still around, they would have watched Indiana games before writing their albums, then made sure to get the music-video animation done before the effects of an Obi Toppin through-the-legs dunk wore off.

Thirty-five games into this one, they are ninth in points per possession. And yet, a moment here or a patented fast break there can still rope anyone back in.

On Thursday, that moment came with Myles Turner laid out on the ground. Just before halftime, and with the Pacers already up 15 on the Miami Heat, Haliburton knocked away Tyler Herro’s dribble. Turner dove onto the court for it and pitched it back to his point guard. Three Pacers streaked the other way with no Heat players around them. Haliburton tossed the ball halfway down the court for an easy Andrew Nembhard bucket.

Of course, the group playing at that time could give a Pacers optimist reason to believe that they are better than a 17-18 squad.

The Pacers starters, especially when Haliburton (who went for 33 points and 15 assists against Miami) plays well, are still a stampede. Once again, those five cooled the Heat on Thursday.

Indiana’s first unit is now outscoring opponents by 16.2 points per 100 possessions, the third-best number of any high-usage lineup in the NBA, trailing only the dominant Celtics’ and Spurs’ starters. (Essentially any time San Antonio has both Wembanyama and Chris Paul on the court together, it is a force.)

Some of that Pacers dominance comes from 3-point shooting randomness. Opponents are missing an inordinate amount of triples against the Indiana first unit, which will presumably regress over time. But the defense has been staunch with Haliburton, Nembhard, Turner, Pascal Siakam and Bennedict Mathurin out there — and Aaron Nesmith, the squad’s most physical defender on the perimeter, is expected back soon.

The question is, what do the Pacers make of this for their future?

The trade deadline is only five weeks away. Indiana has quietly won eight of 12, besting teams it should and falling short against the good ones. But, of course, never overestimate the East. The Pacers are merely 1.5 games back of fifth place and three back of fourth. And unlike the prospective tankers, they want in on April basketball.

Yet, keeping this group together will become expensive.

Assuming the Pacers hold onto their current pieces or even add a helpful player or two (they could use another backup big man, even after trading for Thomas Bryant), their payroll will become untenable next season. The salaries of the 10 players they have under contract for 2025-26 add up to $165.5 million, only $22 million short of the luxury tax line, which they presumably will avoid, especially if they finish around .500. Those 10 players, meanwhile, do not include Myles Turner, who is an unrestricted free agent after this season could command more than $22 million a year.

So what do the Pacers do?

They could trade Turner, though there is zero noise they want to do that. Or they could build a consolidation trade, sending out a couple of eight-figure bench players for only one guy in return, which would help next season’s books.

The Pacers could roam around the Play-In or maybe, like last season, they could rise above it. But how they get there will provide a fascinating example of roster building.

(Top photo of Dorian Finney-Smith: Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)