Story: @TamaraJolee, Dallas Mavs

Dorian Finney-Smith arrived at Mavs Hoop Camp on Tuesday rested and rejuvenated. As usual, he was upbeat, jovial, and excited to meet the kids and play games with campers.

“I’ve just been relaxing and playing with my kids,” Finney-Smith said. “I’m trying to mentally get ready for next year. I’m also trying to get physically ready and not go too hard. Sometimes I’ll try to pick it back up too quickly, but I’m going to try and ease my way into it this year.”

A lot has happened in the month since the Portsmouth, Virginia, native played his final game of the season.

Finney-Smith has enjoyed downtime with his three kids, worked alongside his family to prepare for his upcoming basketball camp back home — and he bought a new two-year-old show horse named Stevie.

“The gas prices are a little high right now,” Finney-Smith joked when explaining the new addition to the family. “(I got) a beautiful horse named Stevie, and I might change her name, but they said it’s bad luck. We’ll see. She’s beautiful, and my kids love her.”

So what are the exact plans with Stevie?

“She’s a show, she’s a show horse…I might take a couple lessons, too,” Finney-Smith said. “I can do it all…like ride, do it all. I’m a 6-foot-8 cowboy.”

The posters over on the NBA subreddit had some fun when they first caught sight of the picture of Finney-Smith posing with his new horse (admittedly, I laughed out loud while reading all the comments).

One person dubbed him Dorian Filly-Smith and another person wrote “DFS for MVP; who says neigh?” Another poster admitted that a horse made sense because he’s already a GOAT.

Of course, the media asked the same questions many on the Reddit sub pondered, like isn’t Finney-Smith too big for that horse?

“She’s only two,” he laughed. “She’s just a baby. She’s still growing.”

It’s been a long-shot dream of his to buy a horse and now he’s in the position to make it happen. Plus, Finney-Smith said, Stevie brings joy to his kids. He admits there’s still much to learn about this new endeavor, but he expects that Stevie will teach the family many new lessons about life.

There was no father in the house when Finney-Smith grew up, and now he’s forging a new path for his children to follow. His daughter and two sons are central to his life. He teaches them that anything is possible.

And it all starts with giving back.

‘I LOVE GIVING BACK TO THE COMMUNITY’

Finney-Smith, the second-longest tenured player on the Mavs, is always about the youngsters. I’ve been covering him at camp since he first arrived in Dallas and not one thing has changed over the years, except for the reaction of the children. He’s a bonafide star now and the quiet claps have evolved into loud shouts and chants the second he hits the court.

Doe could have easily skipped over camps this summer after a long and grueling season. Instead, he decided to give back to the game by attending three events across North Texas today. He started at Mavs Hoop Camp in Colleyville, spoke to 150 underserved boys at Youth World in south Dallas, and ended the day at another Mavs Hoop Camp in Duncanville.

Servanthood leadership is in his DNA, and that will never change.

“I love giving back to the community,” said Finney-Smith, who will jumpstart his seventh NBA season in the fall. “I love seeing the kids’ faces. If I had the chance to see an NBA player (when I was their age), I’d be excited. I’d be listening to everything he was saying.”

He’s a great role model for many reasons. For starters, he graduated with a degree in sociology from the University of Florida. Finney-Smith also overcame numerous obstacles, including losing his older brother Ra-shawn and later becoming a teenage dad at 16 years old.

Finney-Smith was an undrafted free agent in 2016 who locked up the final roster spot with the Mavs that year. Since then, he’s been a force to reckon with, evolving into one of the best defensive players in the league as he carved out a respectable career at only age 29.

July 8, 2022, will mark six years since his life changed when he signed a contract to join the Mavs Summer League team. Every single team passed him by during the 2016 draft, partly because at age 23, he was older than the rest. Plus, people questioned his lankiness and ability to transition to the professional level. As cliche as it sounds, they couldn’t measure his heart and grit and that has guided him ever since. When he secured the 15th spot on the Mavs roster that year, he called his mom and she bawled.

As they say, the rest is history.

Finney-Smith has become a central part of the Dallas Mavericks team and he’s a beloved member of the community.

Dallas rewarded him with a four-year, $52 million extension before the start of the playoffs and today proved, yet again, that money hasn’t changed Finney-Smith. He made an intentional choice to attend three different camps across North Texas and made dreams come true for hundreds of young people.

He even stopped by a local clinic to meet with boys at Youth World, a Christian-based nonprofit organization in south Dallas that helps at-risk kids.

“Dorian spoke to them and did some drills,” said Ronard Patton with the Mavs Academy. “He gave some words of encouragement to kids and showed off some dance moves. He commented that ‘the children looked like me when I was growing up,’ so he connected with them immediately. His appearance was a low-key event, but great for the kids who were there.”

Finney-Smith will give back similarly in late July at his fifth-annual basketball camp on July 30, 2022. The event will take place in the same gym where he once dazzled the crowd at Norcom High School in Portsmouth, Virginia.

If you ask Dorian’s mother, Desireé, about her son, she will always highlight everything about him away from the court. Doe was an honor student in high school and later earned his degree; he’s polite, compassionate, and has a huge heart. He’s also a great father and role model.

Now the duo will come together next month to teach the future generation about the potential of destiny and dreams.

“I have an annual cookout for underprivileged kids,” Finney-Smith said, referring to his yearly Community Love Day that includes a free basketball camp for children 7-13 and a meal for families.

He said this game has blessed him tremendously, and now Doe wants to bless others like him.

“I come from a single-parent household and have five brothers and sisters,” he said. “I also have a small community, so I try to give back in any way I can. I want to do something positive for my city and the kids. Coming from Portsmouth, Virginia, not too many people make it out. It’s a community thing, and I had the community behind me the whole way. I think of the community as a family.”

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