Lakers will honor victims of Thousand Oaks shooting at next home game
On Sunday at Staples Center, before they play each other, Lakers and Atlanta Hawks players will don t-shirts with the word “Enough” on the front, and the names of the 12 people killed by a gunman in a Thousand Oaks bar printed on the back.
The Clippers and Milwaukee Bucks wore the same shirts before they played Saturday at Staples Center. The teams also observed a moment of silence before the game, and the Lakers and Hawks will do the same.
Sunday’s game will be the Lakers’ first home game since the shooting occurred Wednesday night at the Borderline Bar and Grill, killing 12 people and injuring 18. The Kings hosted the Minnesota Wild on Thursday at Staples Center, and players on both teams held up signs that read “Enough” and wore decals of the word on their helmets.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, the shooting in Thousand Oaks is the 307th mass shooting in America this year. It happened a week and a half after 11 people were killed in a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Playing in a haze
The Camp Fire, which destroyed the town of Paradise, more than 80 miles north of Sacramento, impacted the state’s capital as well.
The city was thick with smoke throughout Saturday and some of that haze made its way into the Golden 1 Center where the Sacramento Kings played the Lakers on Saturday night.
“I immediately started calling our staff,” Kings coach Dave Joerger said. “‘How bad is it downtown, what’s going on here?’ It’s just a really sad deal.”
Although some smoke did hover in the arena and locker rooms, the game was played as scheduled. Joerger said the arena’s operations staff had been working on minimizing its impact throughout the day.
Ball plays
Lonzo Ball started Saturday despite a mild ankle sprain he suffered Friday in practice.
Ball injured his ankle when he stepped on Tyson Chandler’s foot. Chandler was hit in the chest by an elbow from Ball. But both players played without any limitations.
Chandler had a team-high 12 rebounds in 23 minutes. Ball had four points on two-for-10 shooting, missing all six of his three-point attempts.
Butler trade reactions
The Lakers’ first two matchups with Minnesota are over, but next time they meet the Timberwolves will look very different, having agreed to trade Jimmy Butler to Philadelphia.
And Luke Walton is just fine with that.
“Jimmy is out of the West,” Walton said. “It’s a good thing.”
Butler scored 32 points against the Lakers in their first meeting and 24 in their second. He was traded after the Timberwolves went 0-5 on a West Coast trip in which they played Golden State, Portland, the Clippers, Lakers and Sacramento.
According to reports, that trip led the Timberwolves to conclude that they couldn’t win with the tension in their locker room stemming from Butler’s desire to be elsewhere.
“I don’t really get caught up in sensing there’s tension on the court … but from the outside looking in, we all know that it hasn’t been good since the start of the season,” LeBron James said. “But it is not really for me to comment on because I don’t know too much about it.”
LAKERS NEXT
VS. ATLANTA
When: Sunday, 6:30
On Air: TV - Spectrum SportsNet; Radio - 710, 1330
Update: Atlanta comes to Los Angeles having lost three games in a row to Charlotte, New York and Detroit.
Follow Tania Ganguli on Twitter @taniaganguli
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