Sports
Steve Kerr, JJ Redick provide respite as Palisades basketball team endures after fires
LOS ANGELES — JJ Redick knew exactly what he was doing. The Los Angeles Lakers coach stepped into a subtle moment and broke the awkward silence with the matter-of-fact delivery of a question. One designed to rile up the guys. Add some juice to the moment.
“Who’s the best player on the team?” Redick asked.
Hands flew up. Five players nominated themselves with raised arms. Another did so with a confident smirk. Redick grinned at the chaos he provoked as several Palisades Charter High School boys basketball team members claimed the crown.
“Are we serious?” sophomore point guard Jack Levey asked, his right hand raised above his head.
“Look at the stats,” senior wing Tommy Pickens said with a smile from his seat, his index finger held high.
The Palisades Dolphins were guests of Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr, hosted by the Lakers on Thursday. They watched the Lakers beat the Warriors from a suite. As a nightcap, they got to hang in a private lounge with Kerr and Redick after the game.
“Every team I was ever on, we all knew who the best player was,” Redick said, one arm folded across his gray hoodie that read Pali Strong in light blue letters. “I’m not saying it was me. I’m saying we all knew who the best player was. You guys, deep down … you know who the best player is.”
The best has taken on a new meaning for the Dolphins. Their school was part of the carnage of the Pacific Palisades fires last month. A couple of players lost their homes. All of them lost their sense of normalcy.
Steve Kerr and JJ Redick speak to the team after Thursday’s Warriors-Lakers game. Last month, fires disrupted their lives and their season. (Courtesy of Golden State Warriors)
But their team is a testament to what was discovered in the ashes, for they found a deeper brotherhood. They found their resilience. They found the spirit of community.
“I learned that they’re their family,” said coach Jeff Bryant in his first season leading Palisades. “And they are relentless. They’re brothers. And they’re going to fight the fight. There was a community once before. There will be a community again.”
And on this night, they found the empathy of a pair of NBA coaches.
Redick, in his first year on the Lakers bench, made the Pacific Palisades his home. He drove past the high school to work every day. The house the Redicks rented burned in the fires, forever engraving them into their new community.
Kerr graduated from Palisades High in 1983. He introduced his mother, Ann, to the team. They told them how at 90 years old she lost the home where she raised her children. More than half a century of memories incinerated.
“Her house is on Chautauqua (Boulevard),” said Kerr, sporting a navy and white Palisades Dolphins trucker cap. “That’s where I grew up. It’s been in the family since 1969.”
But both Kerr and Redick have stiff-armed sympathy. They have resources most victims of the fire don’t. So they shared some of them with the Palisadian hoopers.
If time with two popular NBA coaches wasn’t enough, the Dolphins players were each gifted Kobe Bryant signature Nikes and Warriors gear. They got some television time and media coverage. Their moment of shine had their text messages blowing up.
“Everybody knows us now,” senior wing Mikal Sims said with a confident smile plastered across his face. He’s 6-foot-2 with square shoulders and immaculate cornrows. The camera loves him.
“We were the big people on campus. Then, the campus burned down. Now we’re just the big people wherever we are.”
“They all inspire me with how they are handling it,” Palisades coach Jeff Bryant says of his players, pictured here talking with Steve Kerr. (Courtesy of Golden State Warriors)
With two games left in the regular season, the Dolphins are, somehow, still on a path to the playoffs. They were 9-5 when flames engulfed their city on Jan. 7. In the 12 games since their season resumed, the Dolphins are 8-4.
They even pushed Westchester, leaders of the Western League. Playing a home game at nearby Santa Monica High, the Dolphins put together a 19-0 first-half run to take control of the game. They eventually lost by 10 — their two conference losses are to Westchester, led by Tajh Ariza, son of NBA champion Trevor Ariza — but Palisades got a glimpse of its newfound edge.
“We played a great first half,” Levey, the point guard, said. “A great first half. That’s when I knew that, after the fire, we were still ready to go.”
And that only begins to illustrate their impressiveness. Because undergirding it all is their upended worlds. The fires no longer dominate the news, but still their lives.
They’re back to school online, which the COVID-19 pandemic revealed can be detrimental to students. Now, if they want to hang out as teammates, they travel about 15 miles from campus to Westfield Culver City to grab food together at BJ’s Restaurant & Brewhouse.
Many of the staples and comforts of their teenage lives have been burned away. Much of what they know as home, as life, is covered in soot.
“It’s adversity,” their coach said. “We stare it in the eye. We face it. They all inspire me with how they are handling it. They’re dealing with this every day. If they didn’t lose their home, they lost their community. The restaurants they go eat at after school. The grocery stores they go to. The gas station.”
Yet, they’ve found their groove while all around them smolders.
They don’t have a gym, so their practice schedule is unsettled. They find hardwood where they can, at scarcely convenient times. It’s not uncommon for them to practice at 8 p.m. in a neighboring school’s gym.
“It’s crazy. But everyone is showing up on time,” Levey said.
Wreckage from the Palisades fire sits next to the high school. The facility was badly damaged in the blaze that hit the L.A. area. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Levey is only a sophomore but a clear leader. He’s one of the team’s hardest workers. He runs the offense, feeds the talent around him and scores when necessary.
But his floor general duties also are used to organize his team off the court. He doesn’t even drive yet, but he helps make sure his teammates get what they need. He’s constantly communicating, making sure he spends time with everyone.
It’s made bonding so much different. Their trivial conversations have been accompanied by real ones. They’ve been forced to grow into more than just teammates by their need for one another.
Matin Farhangnia, a senior point guard, lost his home. Pickens moved to California from Michigan, leaving his mom and sister to move with his dad. This senior season was supposed to get him exposure on the court. It wound up exposing him to a new family off it.
The Dolphins’ response: To become even more of a team. To hold dear to their joy. To be liberal with their smiles. To cling to appreciation. Yes, fire destroys. But it also refines.
“We came together more,” Sims said. “The fires really brought detriment to a few of our players. So we really felt for them. We really had to come together. You know, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I really believe that. And we’ve been beaten down pretty bad. But right now, I feel like we’re stronger together.”
GO DEEPER
For Palisades High players, baseball offers normalcy amid a charred L.A. landscape
(Top photo of Steve Kerr and J.J. Redick with the Palisades Charter High School basketball team: Courtesy of Golden State Warriors)
Sports
Steelers’ Mike Tomlin laments ‘volatile rhetoric’ across sports after DK Metcalf fan altercation
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Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin expressed his support for wide receiver DK Metcalf before the star player’s two-game suspension for throwing a punch at a fan was upheld.
Tomlin didn’t elaborate on his reaction to seeing the clip, which showed Metcalf near the barrier between the Steelers’ sideline and the stands. The CBS broadcast caught the interaction, which showed Metcalf pull on the fan’s shirt and take a swing.
Pittsburgh Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin looks on from the sideline during the first half at M&T Bank Stadium on Dec. 7, 2025. (Mitch Stringer/Imagn Images)
The longtime head coach acknowledged Tuesday the increasingly “volatile rhetoric” in sports.
“Not only (in) our business, (but) college, youth sport parents,” he said. “I think it’s just a component of sport that’s developed and developed in a big way in recent years, and it’s unfortunate.”
It’s unclear what the fan, who was identified as Ryan Kennedy, said to Metcalf that sparked the altercation. Kennedy was accused of making a racist comment and saying a derogatory remark about the player’s mother. However, Kennedy vehemently denied the accusations in a statement through a law firm. The statement said no hateful language was used.
Another report said that when Metcalf was playing for the Seattle Seahawks, he reported the fan to team personnel when he was in Detroit previously.
SEVERAL NFL TEAMS HAVE PLAYOFF-CLINCHING SCENARIOS IN WEEK 17
Pittsburgh Steelers’ DK Metcalf wipes his face on the bench during the second half of an NFL football game against the Detroit Lions, Sunday, Dec. 21, 2025, in Detroit. (AP Photo/Rey Del Rio)
Tomlin didn’t speculate when asked if there were more teams could do to protect players in that situation.
“Me speaking on it and speaking on it in detail and particularly expressing my opinion regarding things doesn’t help the circumstance in any way,” he said.
The NFL upheld Metcalf’s suspension on Tuesday night.
The league said Metcalf violated league policy, which states players may not enter the stands or otherwise confront fans at any time on game day and … if a player makes unnecessary physical contact with a fan in any way that constitutes unsportsmanlike conduct or presents crowd-control issues and/or risk of injury, he will be held accountable.”
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He will miss the team’s final two games of the season and leave a boatload of money on the table.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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January has traditionally been the harshest time of the year for the Kings, who haven’t had a winning record in that month the last three seasons. But winter grew dark and gloomy a little earlier than usual because December has hardly been a walk in the park.
With Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken, the Kings head into the NHL’s three-day Christmas break having lost six of their last seven. And things aren’t getting easier any time soon: when the team returns to the ice Saturday, it will play host to the Ducks, who lead the Pacific Division in wins, before closing out 2025 Monday on the road against the Colorado Avalanche, who lead the NHL in wins.
“It’s not going the way we all want to,” forward Kevin Fiala said. “But you know, that’s going to happen for everybody. So it’s us who have to do something about it. Who can pull us out of it? Nobody else.
“I’m not worried. Like, I’m sure we’re gonna get out of this. But it’s not acceptable right now.”
And if it doesn’t change right now, the rest of the season will be as cold as a winter frost for the Kings.
It’s not just that the team is losing, but how it’s losing that is most concerning. The Kings (15-12-9) are 31st in the 32-team NHL in scoring, 30th on the power play and have scored more than two goals just twice in 11 games this month. That’s negated a defense that is second in the league in goals allowed.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to make sense of things,” coach Jim Hiller said when asked to explain a slide that has dropped the Kings into the middle of the division standings. “We just feel like we haven’t had a good run of games where we felt like, win or lose, we really like how we’re playing.
“That’s something that we’ll keep driving towards. We just haven’t had it yet.”
Last season, Hiller’s Kings tied franchise records for wins and points in the regular season and had the best home mark in team history. This season, they’re 4-8-4 at Crypto.com Arena, the second-worst home record in the Western Conference. And that has general manager Ken Holland answering questions about Hiller’s future behind the bench.
“I expect him to be here the rest of the season,” said Holland last week, not exactly a full-throated vote of confidence.
Yet for all their struggles, December has just been a continuation of the things that have plagued the Kings all season.
“We all have high expectations for ourselves,” Hiller said. “We just haven’t hit our stride yet. That’s the part that we’re chasing. That’s what we have to focus on. We have to hit that stride.
“It’s a difficult time right now, for sure.”
On Tuesday, Hiller tried to shake things up by mixing up his lines, most significantly pairing Fiala and Andrei Kuzmenko with center Alex Turcotte. And while Fiala and Kuzmenko both responded with goals, they didn’t come until the Kraken had taken a 3-0 lead.
The first goal came from Jordan Eberle, who was left alone in front of the Kings’ net, giving him plenty of space to settle a pass from Matty Beniers before lifting the puck around goaltender Pheonix Copley and under the crossbar for his 13th goal of the season. It was the fourth power-play goal the Kings had allowed in the last two nights and the sixth in four games.
The Kraken doubled their lead on a quirky goal less than eight minutes later, with Copley misjudging a deflected shot from Seattle’s Frederick Gaudreau, allowing the puck to knuckle off his glove then trickle through his legs for the goal.
Ben Meyers extended Seattle’s lead to 3-0 with less than four minutes left in the second before the Kings finally got on the board with an unassisted goal from Fiala, his 13th of the season, 11 seconds later.
Kings coach Jim Hiller watches from the bench during the second period of a 3-2 loss to the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
(Luke Hales / Getty Images)
Now the Kings will have three days to think about that, although Fiala said he’d gotten over the game by the time he finished showering.
“If you win five in a row or lose five in a row or whatever, it’s forgotten. It’s in the past,” he said. “I think we take the good things with us and the bad things we hopefully analyze and get better at.”
For Hiller, the break couldn’t come at a better time. Or a worse time since the team’s current seven-game slump is its deepest since the winter of 2023-24. That one cost coach Todd McLellan his job.
“I hope the players are able to relax and refresh themselves,” Hiller said. “It’s been from September till now, with the schedule and how busy it is. And 85% of our games, we’ve been playing within one goal.
“It’s taxing physically and mentally. So I’m sure those guys need a break.”
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An internet rumor swirled last week that a longtime NFL reporter had died at the age of 40.
News of Jane Slater’s supposed death on social media, but she was quick to shut it down.
An X user posted a screenshot of a post on Facebook that showed Slater in black and white with the graphic “1980-2025” saying she had died at 40. Slater, 45, was born in 1980, but the years written in the post would mean she died at either age 44 or 45.
NFL Network sideline reporter Jane Slater stands on the sidelines prior to an NFL football game between the Seattle Seahawks and the Chicago Bears, at Soldier Field on Dec. 26, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. (Todd Rosenberg/Getty Images)
“A veteran reporter who covered the Dallas Cowboys—having followed the team for over a decade—has passed away at the age of 40 after a tragic domestic violence incident, leaving behind a 5-year-old child. Her years of dedicated work, along with the heartbreaking circumstances surrounding her death, have left loyal fans stunned, devastated, and praying for her and her family,” the post read.
The user asked Slater, “did you pass away??”
Jane Slater speaks with T.Y. Hilton of the Dallas Cowboys after the game against the Philadelphia Eagles at AT&T Stadium on Dec. 24, 2022 in Arlington, Texas. (Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
STEELERS’ AARON RODGERS HILARIOUSLY TRASH TALKS STAR DEFENDER IN MIC’D UP MOMENT
“I don’t think so? But does this mean there is (a) glitch in the matrix? I’m gonna wrap myself in bubble wrap until NYE,” Slater joked.
If there is one thing the Facebook post got correct, it’s that Slater does mainly cover the Cowboys for the NFL Network.
NFL Network reporter Jane Slater on the sideline prior to an NFC Wild Card Playoff game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Dallas Cowboys at Raymond James Stadium on Jan. 16, 2023 in Tampa, Florida. (Perry Knotts/Getty Images)
Prior to joining in 2016, Slater worked for ESPN and the Longhorn Network, having attended the University of Texas. She also hosted a radio show in Dallas.
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