Touching moment: Victor Wembanyama, Chris Paul give game-worn jerseys to J.J. Redick’s children

LOS ANGELES — J.J. Redick and his family were among the thousands in Los Angeles who had their lives turned upside down this week when the Pacific Palisades home they rented burned down in the wildfires that have devastated the city. “Everything that we owned that was of any importance to us in almost 20 years together as a couple and 10 years of parenting was in that house. There are certain things that you can’t replace, that will never be replaced,” the Lakers’ coach said before his team practiced this week.

Among those irreplaceable things was the growing basketball memorabilia collection of Redick’s two young sons, Knox and Kai, both huge NBA fans. Monday night, after the Lakers’ first game since the fires started, the Spurs’ Chirs Paul and Victor Wembanyama helped Knox and Kai restart that collection by signing and giving the boys their game-worn jerseys.

“They’re huge NBA fans,” an emotional Redick said after the game. “I ran a podcast out of my home for two years, all the players would come through. They’d get either a jersey or a card signed, they lost all that… it was nice of them to do it.”

“I heard of that. And, yeah, Chris asked me earlier if it was okay for me to do that, I didn’t know they were huge fans like this, but J.J. is a person I like, and that was directly impacted by this,” Wembanyama said after his Spurs picked up the win. “So I just knew, if I can make those kid’s days, I’ll do it.”

It was a simple act of kindness that goes a long way toward healing people, the kind of gesture seen throughout Los Angeles in recent days.

The Lakers are also trying to help the city heal in a more significant way. They helped put together a donation drive outside Crypto.com Arena to support the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank’s relief efforts, where fans could drop off food for people who have lost everything. The Lakers also have teamed up with other Los Angeles professional sports teams — the Clippers, Sparks, Dodgers, Angels, Rams, Chargers, Kings, Galaxy, LAFC, and Angel City — and donated more than $8 million to support relief efforts.