In the modern NBA, 3-and-D wings are a hot commodity. In fact, they’re such hot commodities that teams are willing to compromise. Teams will even covet wings that are subpar from long-range, or snipers who are inconsistent defenders.
After all, a subpar shooter can get hot. As long as they’ve shown some potential for shooting, teams will want them. Meanwhile, an average defender with a strong physical profile can improve on defense.
For example, take Dorian Finney-Smith. His defense is consistently stellar. With that said, his 3-point shooting is known to come and go. He’s not someone that is going to attack closeouts at a high level to get to the rim, use a floater, or a pull-up jumper. He may even hesitate when there’s a tighter contest.
Finney-Smith is coming off an underachieving regular season, shooting just 33.7 percent from beyond the arc on 5.1 attempts per game. He not only didn’t have a single month shooting at least 40 percent — excluding his three games in April — he didn’t shoot even 37 percent.
The Nets did not heavily utilize Finney-Smith in their playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers as he was during his time with the Dallas Mavericks. He played under 20 minutes in two of his four appearances and crossed the 30-minute threshold just once.
Could the New York Knicks acquire him anyway?
