Lakers rumors about Dorian Finney-Smith’s exit are swirling. What will Luka Doncic think of them?

Luka Doncic and Dorian Finney-Smith have been close friends dating back to their stint on the Dallas Mavericks together. Even before reuniting on the Lakers in the wake of Doncic’s shocking trade to L.A. last year, the then-Mavericks star had said Finney-Smith was “my guy,” and predicted they’d team up again in the future.

“I miss him so much,” Doncic told reporters while still on the Mavs ahead of a game against Finney-Smith’s then-team, the Brooklyn Nets. “I know at some point, we’re gonna play again, for sure. That’s my guy.”

It didn’t take long for that prediction to come true. By the next season, the Lakers had acquired both buddies in separate trades, one of the few things Doncic had said he was excited about in the wake of being blindsided by Nico Harrison’s Mavs banishment (via Lakers Nation):

“10. That’s my guy man, that’s my guy,” Doncic said when asked to rate his excitement out of 10. “We basically like, I feel like we started playing basketball together in Dallas. We grew up as players together so I’m excited to play with him.”

Watching the two play, it’s no surprise why he feels that way. Doncic’s unparalleled heliocentrism on the floor frees up Finney-Smith for the most open threes he’s ever going to take, and Finney-Smith’s tenacious defense allows Doncic to carry less of a load at his size than he normally would on that end of the floor.

Not only that, but they appeared to be true friends off the court too, from talk of getting dinners when their teams met up on the road, to Finney-Smith being one of Doncic’s most prominent defenders against the cacophony of weight-shaming he underwent from anonymous sources upon exiting Dallas:

Finney-Smith made Luka’s life easier, and Luka got Finney-Smith properly valued and paid by creating an offensive role he could shine in. It was a symbiotic relationship, like a remora fish latching on to a shark, cleaning it in exchange for protection from other predators.

All that preamble is to explain why it was surprising when the Lakers let Finney-Smith walk to the Houston Rockets in free agency, and especially so that they appeared to be resigned to that fate well before the opening bell for player movement even began.

Why? Well, that’s where things get interesting.

Why there are rumors of a rift between the Lakers and Dorian Finney-Smith

In addition to the fact that multiple reporters were indicating that Finney-Smith was likely a goner before free agency even started — an indication when reading between the lines that, at best, negotiations between DFS and the Lakers were not going well — there was then a report from Anthony Irwin of Clutch Points that Finney-Smith’s camp felt like Lakers president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka had badmouthed the 32-year-old forward to other teams who might be interested in him:

That is a pretty damning allegation, even without mentioning that it would be a pretty terrible plan anyway. Nearly half the league had the mid-level exception to offer Finney-Smith, so it’s unlikely that Pelinka could have driven his value down with every single suitor, even if that’s what he was trying to do.

It’s possible that Pelinka didn’t intentionally try to undercut Finney-Smith — team executives talk to each other all the time, and it’s possible Pelinka was just riffing with his peers that the Lakers may not keep Finney-Smith, without nefarious intent — but this is probably not great for Pelinka’s already-shaky league-wide rep. He is already widely known to not be well-liked by many of his peers from his days as a powerful player agent, which would also make it seem like any plan to deliberately drive down Finney-Smith’s value would not be smart. After all, what is the upside in trying to badmouth your new star’s close friend to people who (probably) hate you and have an incentive to undercut you by telling Finney-Smith about what you said if they want an advantage in trying to sign him?

But even if Pelinka was not intentionally trying to badmouth Finney-Smith, multiple insiders have made it clear that Finney-Smith’s camp was not happy with how negotiations went. Zach Lowe of The Ringer said on a recent episode of his eponymous podcast that he “heard negotiations were going badly” between DFS and the Lakers, and that the talks “didn’t end on good terms.” His new boss, Bill Simmons, went even further on his own self-named show:

“The Finney-Smith thing, I think with the people that know this shit, it didn’t feel like this was a big enough story publicly that the Lakers screwed up the Finney-Smith thing. That him and his agent kind of felt like Pelinka was negging his value in the open market and telling teams he was hurt. And they found out about it, and they pulled back, and they said ‘that’s it, we’re not [negotiating anymore].’ Then they went and solicited the Houston thing.”

Ultimately, only Pelinka, Finney-Smith and his reps will ever know the full story of what went down, but it’s clear that things got acrimonious between the two sides, even outside of monetary discussions.

Why this matters

Ultimately, the Lakers may have lost Finney-Smith for nothing no matter what, even outside of whatever faux pas his side felt they committed. He got four years and $53 million from the Rockets — in a city with no state income tax — and the Lakers reportedly only offered him a two-year contract to try and keep future cap space open. The latter almost makes this all more of a dumb self-own, because if you weren’t gonna pony up to keep the guy anyway, there is no incentive to piss off a close friend of your just-arrived star on their way out the door with a contentious negotiation.

Luka Doncic will become eligible for a four-year extension worth approximately $228.6 million on Aug. 2, according to Silver Screen and Roll cap ace Bryan Toporek. All of the above is not to indicate that Doncic wouldn’t sign an extension solely because of some tiff with his friend. NBA players know the league is a cold business. But whatever happened between the Lakers and Finney-Smith appears to have gone beyond just making him feel undervalued or low-balled in salary discussions.

Whether that will affect his buddy’s view of Los Angeles, Pelinka, or the prospect of extending his contract is anyone’s guess, but if you’re the Lakers, it’s not the kind of thing you want rattling around in his head when trying to get him to commit a huge chunk of his prime to you for less money than he would have gotten with the Mavericks. Luka’s already experienced a team essentially leaking that he’s a fat, lazy, loser on his way out the door in Dallas, so it’s fair to wonder if he’d be wary of any executive who may do the same.

And if that gives him pause on committing to Los Angeles long-term, if I were incoming owner Mark Walter, well… I know which party I’d be loyal to.