The past week has been an extraordinarily difficult one for many members of the Los Angeles community. The towns of Pacific Palisades and Altadena have been absolutely ravaged by two wildfires, and many Los Angeles Lakers — including LeBron James and JJ Redick — have not been spared from the effects.
Redick lost his home in the Palisades fire, a devastating loss of years worth of memories and a large financial burden to rebuild. And while he certainly has the money to be able to do so, it’s still a massive loss and something that is a harsh reality for so many people in both Palisades and Altadena today.
LeBron has been a little more fortunate, as his Brentwood home is still intact. However, he and his family have not been to the house in days, as their area is still under evacuation orders. The Lakers star discussed that and the difficulty of the last week.
“Obviously, been a lot of emotions,” LeBron said. “A couple dear friends that lost their homes in Palisades, and obviously, my heart goes out to all the other families all across not only the Palisades, but all across LA County and all the surrounding areas because of the fire and things of that nature. So it’s been a lot of emotions.
“Kind of been off, personally. I’ve been off, personally. My family, we’ve been evacuated since Thursday night, so I’ve been in the hotel since pretty much when we got back from Dallas. So just figuring it out. But staying strong for one another. Obviously, that’s most important. Our friends that lost their homes, just being there for them. Very challenging, especially when you got kids and you lose your home and all their belongings and why things that it’s just a lot to just try to even wrap your head around it.
“So I’m very happy that my family is safe, my wife, three kids, my mom, she’s been here. Everyone’s safe, but it’s just been off, completely off for obviously, for obvious reasons. But I guess hopefully, things are contained or continue to be contained, and hopefully, at some point, we can start to push forward, move forward, and kind of put it behind us. We can rebuild our city, rebuild this beautiful city and things of that nature.”
This is not the first time that LeBron and his family have had to evacuate due to wildfires in the L.A. area. The same situation happened in 2019, and James talked about the differences and similarities between the two.
“Well, we had that experience that was able to lean on that a little bit. The difference between 19 and today is the one in 19, it was in the middle of the night, so we had to get going right away. We had a little bit more time before we had to evacuate. We were able to get some things, get some belongings, whatever the case may be, some things that meant things to us, but our home has definitely not been touched since the moment we left, but it’s still standing there. We’re grateful for that.
“We hopefully continue to stand just waiting patiently. Will be granted to possibly go back to it and be at one again, under our home, and to think of that, to know that families have lost their home where they don’t even have that privilege, it’s just mind-blowing to me, because of the fire and things of that nature. So we’re grateful, super grateful, but still, just like thinking about all the families that had to go through the things we had to go through up the last week. It seems like so much longer than a week.”
The Lakers had two games postponed due to the wildfires, but the team was very vocal about their wanting to get back into action. LeBron explained why he felt that way and why it’s good that the league has resumed basketball action in Los Angeles.
“It’s definitely our job to know that we still have a job to do and we have to focus on our job, but also still being human beings and understanding that what real life is all about, too. But I hope that by us going out on the floor and us playing the way we played tonight. Not the way against San Antonio, but the whole way we played tonight, hopefully in the next few months, or whatever it is, years until the city is back up that we, as a Lakers franchise, and the players just gonna be playing for the Lakers, give hope and pride and excitement and things of that nature,” James said.
“Sports has always given people an opportunity to kind of just like, temporarily forget about whatever they may be going through. Us being such a big part of the LA community, along with a lot of other sports teams, but we know how important the Lakers is to the community. Hopefully, provide that for a lot of fans.”
Even though people like LeBron have the means to rebuild if catastrophic things happen, that doesn’t necessarily remove the emotional toll of things like evacuating for a week and not being 100% sure if your home will be there when you get back.
And he, like the entire Los Angeles community, is looking for something to band together around in the meantime. The Lakers seem to be one of those forces.
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