{"id":95057,"date":"2025-06-13T02:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-13T02:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/95057\/"},"modified":"2025-06-13T02:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-13T02:43:10","slug":"a-key-lakers-player-just-had-a-surgical-procedure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/95057\/","title":{"rendered":"A key Lakers player just had a surgical procedure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yet again, the <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/los-angeles-lakers\/13\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Los Angeles Lakers;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> are going through a long, empty offseason after failing to win the NBA championship or even make a deep playoff run. They have plenty of work to do this summer, and it starts with adding a couple more pieces to what seems to be a championship-caliber core.<\/p>\n<p>The extended downtime will at least give their players a chance to fully recuperate and prepare for next season. For one key player, it meant going under the knife in order to solve a nagging problem.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Per Dave McMenamin of ESPN, Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith had a procedure done on his left ankle. It is not expected to interfere with his availability for next season.<\/p>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/45500661\/sources-lakers-dorian-finney-smith-undergoes-ankle-surgery\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:ESPN;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">ESPN<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Los Angeles Lakers forward Dorian Finney-Smith underwent surgery on his left ankle and is expected to be able to participate in training camp ahead of the 2025-26 NBA season, sources told ESPN,&#8221; McMenamin wrote.<\/p>\n<p>The procedure reportedly aimed to fix an ankle problem he has had for quite some time.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The procedure will allow the 32-year-old Finney-Smith to play pain-free after cleaning up a lingering ankle injury that he fought to play through the past several seasons.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Finney-Smith was traded by the Brooklyn Nets to the Lakers in late December. His arrival seemed to spark a transformation for the Lakers into a defensive-minded team, and he was the type of 3-and-D player they had badly needed for a few years.<\/p>\n<p>He has a player option for $15.38 million that he can turn down in order to become a free agent this summer. Retaining him is one thing on the Lakers&#8217; to-do list as far as being able to seriously contend for the NBA championship next season.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/lebronwire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/2025\/06\/12\/a-key-lakers-player-just-had-a-surgical-procedure\/84178843007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:A key Lakers player just had a surgical procedure;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">A key Lakers player just had a surgical procedure<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yet again, the Los Angeles Lakers are going through a long, empty offseason after failing to win the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3790],"tags":[7,247,8095,374,130,4034,1698,300,4044,251,150,4033,4043,6,3220,5034],"class_list":{"0":"post-95057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-lakers","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brooklyn-nets","10":"tag-dave-mcmenamin","11":"tag-dorian-finney-smith","12":"tag-espn","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-lakers","15":"tag-lakers","16":"tag-lalakers","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-losangeleslakers","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-nba-championship","23":"tag-next-season"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114673759234310858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}