Dorian Finney-Smith, second-longest tenured Dallas Maverick and quintessentially “Mavs-y” guy turned in another banner year, earned every bit of his contract extension, and, arguably, upped his post-season play more than any other Mavericks player not named Jalen Brunson.
The narrative of the undrafted player is perhaps a dead horse at this point with DFS, but his development into one of Dallas’ most important starters has been a great treat to those who slogged through watching those ugly 2016, 2017, and 2018 campaigns. And while the ‘Mavericks' player development surely deserves some credit for how Finney-Smith has grown, it shouldn’t be discounted just how much of that is a testament to Finney-Smith’s drive to improve and develop into exactly the kind of player Dallas needed – and the kind of player 29 other teams in the league would kill to have on their roster.