Lakers coach JJ Redick, speaking for the first time since he and his family had their Pacific Palisades home destroyed by a fire that devastated a community, fought back tears as he talked about the loss he and his neighbors suffered, the resolve to rebuild Los Angeles and the sanctuary basketball provided him on Friday as the team held a practice.
The Lakers are scheduled to host San Antonio on Saturday night at Crypto.com Arena, and despite the unimaginable loss Redick and his family suffered this week, he wants the Lakers to play.
“Being around the guys and coaching — and I told them this — we’re prepared for whatever tomorrow. We obviously are going to work with the NBA, the Spurs, the city and do what’s right,” he said. “I want to play tomorrow, I want to coach tomorrow. I want these guys to play tomorrow and if we can play, we’ll play.
“I do believe for everybody, for everybody that has been impacted by this, there is a grieving process. There’s a healing process. I can only speak for myself, part of my healing and grieving process is being here with these guys and coaching basketball.”
Tears filled Redick’s eyes as he recounted a conversation he had with his wife, Chelsea, after seeing the destruction in Pacific Palisades with his own eyes Wednesday morning.
“I’m not sure I’ve wept or wailed like that in several years,” he said. “And she said to me, ‘I was very hesitant to move out here. I was very hesitant for you to go into coaching. I’ve never loved living somewhere more than I’ve loved Brooklyn, and I’ve never loved the community more than I love the community I’ve had in Brooklyn. And then, you know, it’s like, we move out here and the Palisades community has really just been so good to us.’
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“And that’s, I think that’s the part for us that we’re really struggling with is just the loss of community. And I recognize that people make up community, and we’re going to rebuild and we want to help lead on that. But all the churches, the schools, the library, like it’s all gone.”
In particular, the community’s recreation center had become an important place to the family beginning with the first time they saw the house that they rented and filled with their most important possessions while trying to find a permanent base in Los Angeles.
“The day we visited the house and decided we wanted to live in the house, we’re like, let’s go explore the village. And we stumbled upon the rec center and there was some summer rec league basketball games going on. One kid, Milo, was playing. I was like, ‘Oh, he’s pretty good.’ He ended up being one of our neighbors; they lost their home. The rec center was like this, this place we were at every day. I mean, flag football, basketball, the playground, baseball, tennis courts. Like it’s just … and everyone we knew was there every day. And you just, it, it, it, it just hurts to lose that.”
Redick said he and his family were committed to being a part of the recovery effort in the city.
“For our family, we’re as committed as ever to Los Angeles,” he said. “We recognize, like it’s not just our community that has been impacted by this. There’s people in Malibu, there’s people in Brentwood, there’s people up in the valley, there’s people in Pasadena … it’s all over L.A. And if there’s anything we can do to help and lead, we will. … We’re still figuring that out. It’s still pretty fresh, but, we’re committed to helping other people as much as we can. And we’re going to do that. And we recognize that it’s going to be a long process. …
“This has impacted so many people. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me and my family. We’re gonna be all right. We’re gonna be all right. There’s people that, um, you know, because of some political issues and some insurance issues are not going to be all right. And we’re going to do everything we can to help anybody who’s down and out because of this.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.