JJ Redick says the Lakers want to play, “give people hope”

EL SEGUNDO, California — Los Angeles Lakers coach JJ Redick fought back tears Friday, grieving not only the loss of his family’s home, reduced to rubble by the Palisades Fire that is still active and has already burned more of 20,000 acres, but also their entire community that was wiped out this week.

Redick’s wife, Chelsea, and their two children, Knox and Kai, were one of thousands of families evacuated from their home Tuesday afternoon in anticipation of the unprecedented fires that began to devastate Los Angeles while Redick was on tour. with the Lakers, preparing for their game against the Dallas Mavericks.

The team’s return flight after the Dallas defeat arrived around 2 in the morning and the Lakers coach met with his family at the hotel where they had moved. After a few hours of listless sleep, he drove to Pacific Palisades early Wednesday morning to check out the house he was renting while searching for a more permanent home in his first year as the team’s coach.

“I wasn’t prepared for what I saw,” Redick said. “It’s complete devastation and destruction. I had to go a different way to the house, but I made it through for the most part.” [Palisades] Town and everything is over. And I don’t think you can ever prepare for something like that. Our home, our home is gone.”

The Lakers’ game against the Charlotte Hornets, scheduled for Thursday, was postponed by the NBA. It will be rescheduled at a later date.

Redick and the Lakers met as a team for a light practice on Friday, meeting for the first time since the fires in anticipation of hosting the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday, a game Redick said he expects to start as scheduled.

“Obviously we’re going to work with the NBA, the Spurs, the city and do the right thing,” Redick said. “I want to play tomorrow; I want to train tomorrow. I want these guys to play tomorrow and if we can play, we will play.”

Lakers guard Austin Reaves said Rob Pelinka, the team’s vice president of basketball operations and general manager, informed players about Redick’s situation via a group text message.

“Not just me, but this team loves him and cares about him and his family,” Reaves said of Redick. “He’s a great competitor, he comes to work every day, especially today, and he wants to do his job. And there are a million other things he could be thinking about doing right now, but he’s dedicated to what he’s doing here and “Obviously dedicated to his family, I know he’s looking out for them.”

Redick talked about some of the items that perished in the fire, family treasures accumulated over 18 years of marriage and 10 years of parenting.

“My son did an art project last year,” Redick said. “It was… a pencil and charcoal painting of a lighthouse that we had framed above the stairs. You can never replace things like that.”

However, he emphasized how fortunate he feels knowing that others will have a harder time rebuilding what was lost.

“I don’t want people to feel sorry for me and my family,” Redick said. “We’re going to be okay. There are people who, because of some political issues and some insurance issues, are not going to be okay. And we’re going to do everything we can to help anyone who is depressed because of this.”

Redick may have become the face of tragedy for the Lakers organization, but he shared that there are others within the team dealing with the unthinkable havoc the fires have caused. Among those affected are Dan Grigsby, the team’s legal director, who lost his home in Pacific Palisades; Josh Green, the team’s general counsel, who lost his home and whose parents lost their home in the Palisades fire; and Rohan Ali, the team’s cameraman, whose parents lost their home in Altadena.

Lakers players Anthony Davis and Jarred Vanderbilt made significant charitable contributions to a GoFundMe created to help Ali’s family.

Redick said it was a difficult decision for his family to leave Brooklyn, New York this summer and move to Los Angeles when he was considering the job with the Lakers, but that the connections they made in Pacific Palisades made that transition easier.

“The Palisades community has really been very good to us,” Redick said. “I think the part we’re really struggling with is the loss of community. And I recognize that people make up community, and we’re going to rebuild it, and we want to help lead that. But all the churches, the schools, the library, everything disappeared.”

Redick said the Lakers’ return to the court, in some ways, can help the broader Los Angeles community find some normalcy after a hellish week.

“Obviously we want to give people hope and we want to give them, I don’t want to say a distraction, maybe an escape,” Redick said. “We talked about it as a group before practice. It’s our responsibility, everyone in this building, to lead this and help people.”