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 it at a really high level.”

Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith shoots against the Houston Rockets on Jan. 5.

Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith shoots against the Houston Rockets on Jan. 5. (Ashley Landis / Associated Press)

As the NBA trade deadline approaches on Feb. 6, Finney-Smith’s impact on the Lakers has been both tangible and intangible, the veteran giving the Lakers defensive toughness and three-point shooting on the court and galvanizing presence in their locker room where he’s already become a favorite.

It’s a template for any future moves the Lakers make, finding a player who aligns with the style they want to play and the culture they’re trying to create.

“The ultimate glue guy,” Shake Milton said.

Finney-Smith’s defense Thursday on Jayson Tatum and his work Saturday against the Warriors have given the Lakers things they just didn’t have before they traded for him. He aggressively closes out on three-point shooters. He tries repeatedly to poke the ball free when he’s guarding an attacker. He’s low-maintenance on offense, always ready to shoot and always willing to hustle back and defend when he doesn’t get a touch.

And he’s never silent — calling out coverages, cheering teammates, just anything but quiet.

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“I try to be an energy giver. So I just don’t shut up. I just talk. And I’m gonna make sure you hear my voice as much as I can,” Finney-Smith said. “And it can’t be [LeBron James] and [Anthony Davis] doing the talking. They’re the ones who gotta make the decisions. They got a lot of stuff [to handle]. So the rest of us can be the energy givers.”

And it’s been contagious.

“The talk is really contagious and I think the toughness. That’s what I was like really getting at a few weeks ago when I talked about the leadership component. Yeah. We all are leaders,” Redick said. … “Max Christie, just because you’re 21 doesn’t mean you can’t lead in some way. And that to me is like Dorian leading. His version of leading looks different than [Austin Reaves’] version of leading, [which] looks different than LeBron’s version of leading. And I think the biggest thing is … this isn’t shade at anyone else. It’s not shade at anyone else in the NBA. But Doe is comfortable with who he is — like the player, the person. And in my experience… people that are like that, people gravitate towards that. People want to follow that. That’s what Doe is.”

James said Finney-Smith is “exactly what we needed.” Reaves said that the veteran has been nothing but “fantastic.”

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Since his Dec. 31 debut, the Lakers have been 51 points better than their opponents in Finney-Smith’s minutes — the best rating on the Lakers — even though five players have played more minutes.

And that’s just a part of his value.

“You could forget the basketball side. His energy, his personality. You can tell from the day he got into the locker room that he was a win-first mentality guy. So anytime you bring a guy like that on — him and Shake are both the same way. They care about winning and whatever they can do to help us win,” Reaves said. “So then when you bring the positives of what he does on the basketball court, that makes it even better. Long, versatile defender that can make open shots, plays the game the right way. You can go on and on, but I think really what I enjoy about him most is the personality

“He’s a selfless guy, cares about everybody, wants to win, and overall he’s a really, really good dude.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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