The 2024-25 NBA regular season will be remembered among Los Angeles Lakers for being the time when Luka Doncic joined the purple and gold. Just over a month prior, however, Los Angeles completed another trade that transformed its quality and identity.

Fast forward to the summer of 2025 and that very trade could decide how successful the Lakers’ efforts are as far as building a sustainable future is concerned.

A blink of the eye before the calendar flipped from December to January, Los Angeles completed a trade for Dorian Finney-Smith. The deal has proven transformative, as the Lakers have become an elite defensive team in the immediate aftermath of his arrival.

As outlined by John Hollinger of The Athletic, however, the Lakers will soon need to decide how to handle Finney-Smith’s potential free agency—including whether or not they can risk a long-term deal.

“This little trick is likely to come up in the case of several teams dancing the first-apron tightrope, most notably with the Lakers and Dorian Finney-Smith. The idea is that L.A. can get Finney-Smith to decline his player option for $15.4 million for 2025-26 in return for re-signing on a longer deal for less money..”

To put it simply: Los Angeles needs to figure out how to avoid the first apron, and Finney-Smith declining his player option and signing a long-term deal for less per season could be the key.

Lakers need Dorian Finney-Smith to decline and re-sign—but it’s risky

Finney-Smith has been nothing short of essential, providing the Lakers with extraordinary value. Across a more than sufficient sample size of 870 minutes played, Los Angeles is outscoring opponents by a team-best 13.2 points per 100 possessions with him on the court.

The Lakers are being outscored by 2.6 points per 100 possessions without Finney-Smith, meaning his mere presence on the court creates a 15.8-point swing in their favor.

Compounded by the fact that Finney-Smith has a preexisting relationship with Doncic, the Lakers would be wise to keep him beyond the 2024-25 season. To some degree, however, that could be beyond their control.

Finney-Smith has a $15,378,480 player option for the 2025-26 season, which he could either accept or decline and thus enter unrestricted free agency.

In Hollinger’s scenario, the Lakers would convince Finney-Smith to decline his player option in favor of a long-term deal. It would pay Finney-Smith less per season, but would ultimately amount to more across the life of the contract.

The risk for the Lakers, however, is that Finney-Smith will turn 32 in May and a long-term deal could pay him into his age-34 season or beyond.

Perhaps Finney-Smith will continue to thrive as a player with the intangibles to impact a game even when the ball isn’t in his hands. It’s also likely, however, that Father Time will continue to win its wars and bring Finney-Smith’s on-court value below his annual salary before the hypothetical contract expires.

If the goal is to continue building around the pieces in place, however, it’s a gamble the Lakers may need to accept the risks of.