Alijah Arenas will withdraw his name from the NBA draft and return to USC for his sophomore season, according to a person familiar with the decision not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The former five-star prospect, whose father is NBA star Gilbert Arenas, was expected to spend just a single season at USC before declaring for the draft. But nothing went as planned during Arenas’ freshman season.
Arenas was involved in a single-car accident in April 2025 and hospitalized for six days after a Tesla Cybertruck he was driving hit a tree and burst into flames. The week that he returned to practice after the accident, Arenas learned he needed knee surgery. He didn’t debut for the Trojans until late January. And when he finally made it into the lineup, Arenas was thrown into a starring role in the middle of a brutal Big Ten slate and struggled to adjust.
Still, there were glimpses of the player that Compton Magic AAU founder Etop Udo-Ema told The Times had the potential to one day “be the face of the NBA.” Over one stretch in early February, Arenas had 29 points in a win over Indiana, scored 24 and hit a winning shot at Penn State and put up 25 points at Ohio State.
“Just the things he can do, the IQ he has, what he can see, the way that he moves, the length, the size,” Udo-Ema said, “he’s the most talented guy I’ve ever seen.”
But Arenas told The Times in late February that he was unhappy with the results of his freshman campaign to that point.
“I know what I’m capable of. And I’m not there yet,” Arenas said. “Simple as that.”
Arenas had submitted his name as an early entrant in the NBA draft, the deadline for which was Monday. But ultimately, he opted to return to USC as a sophomore, in hopes of starting anew.
Arenas returns to a roster that should be even more talented in the 2026-27 season. Guard Rodney Rice and forward Jacob Cofie also announced earlier this month that they would return, while three top-25 prospects are set to join the roster this summer.
USC also already added a trio of players in the portal, including a 7-footer in Connecticut’s Eric Reibe and an experienced starter in Georgetown’s KJ Lewis.
Brenen Thompson is from Spearman, Texas, at the top of the panhandle, where the gusts are constant and the only tourist attraction is a collection of old windmills.
Have you checked out Thompson’s speed numbers?
Prepare to be blown away.
Thompson, newest receiver for the Chargers, ran the 40-yard dash in a forehead-slapping 4.26 seconds — a mere .04 off the NFL combine record. What the former Mississippi State star lacks in size — he’s a shade under 5 feet 10 and 164 pounds — he makes up for in an ability to almost teleport from one spot to another.
Not the biggest position of need for the Chargers, who took him in the fourth round, but a nifty weapon for new offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel, who in the past has drawn up schemes for such scorchers as Jaylen Waddle, Travis Benjamin and Tyreek Hill.
Now, for the plodding part. OK, the Chargers didn’t race to the podium to select offensive linemen — their undoing last season — but they have remade their offensive line anyway.
First, they’re getting back Pro Bowl tackles Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt, who missed all or most of last season with leg injuries; signed center Tyler Biadasz and guard Cole Strange in free agency; and drafted Florida center Jake Slaughter in the second round, with the idea of him playing guard.
So if the plan works out, the Chargers will start five linemen who weren’t even in uniform for them for the January playoff loss to New England. Good thing, because that injury-ravaged line was a fire-drill mess last season.
In years before the Jim Harbaugh regime, the Chargers didn’t embrace the notion of trading down for more picks. But general manager Joe Hortiz likes doing that, and turned what would have been a quiet weekend — two selections on Day 3 — into a six-pick bonanza.
The club took Memphis tackle Travis Burke in the fourth round, presumably adding depth at the position because he’s not the type of player who is going to move inside to guard (and he’s almost certainly not going to unseat Slater or Alt). Depth is good at that spot, because as the Chargers were reminded last season, you’ll sooner find a stray $100 bill on the street than a capable NFL tackle.
The Chargers rounded out the draft by selecting a pair of guards in the sixth round, Logan Taylor of Boston College and Alex Harkey of Oregon. Whereas Taylor was a four-year starter, Harkey started one season at right tackle for the Ducks — he bounced from Colorado to Texas State to Oregon — and projects as an interior lineman in the pros.
Oregon’s Alex Harkey is among the four offensive linemen the Chargers selected in the 2026 NFL draft.
(Mark Ylen / Associated Press)
With the third of their four fourth-rounders, the Chargers took Arizona safety Genesis Smith. He has the cover skills and range to play the deep part of the field, and he’ll be learning from the best in All-Pro Derwin James Jr. Harbaugh is constantly saying, “Competitors welcome,” and Smith figures to be just that. If there’s trust on the back end, James can move up closer to the line of scrimmage to make plays and wreak havoc.
If a player is especially tough and violent on the field, the Chargers will affix a magnetic hammer sticker next to his name on the draft board. That’s what they did with South Carolina defensive tackle Nick Barrett, their final pick of the fourth round. The team typically carries five or six defensive linemen, and Barrett joins a group that includes Teair Tart, Jamaree Caldwell and Dalvin Tomlinson.
The Chargers already ramped up their pass rush by selecting Miami’s Akheem Mesidor at No. 22, a player widely projected to be off the board by then. Doesn’t matter the division, a strong pass rush is always essential. But having that in the AFC West, with Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, Denver’s Bo Nix and No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza heading to Las Vegas, turning up the heat on quarterbacks is especially important.
Mesidor, who began his career at West Virginia and finished at Miami, was among the oldest players in the draft at 25. Some saw his age as a negative.
“I’ve been doubted my whole life. I’m ready to come in and earn the respect of my teammates and my coaches and compete,” he told reporters. “The age stuff, any of the negativity that people push into the media about me, is all out the window. It does not faze me, I’m here to play football.”
In the NFL, you can never have enough good pass rushers, and the team that winds up winning the Super Bowl is often the one at or near the top in getting to the quarterback. But first things first. The Chargers have to win a playoff game, something they haven’t done in two seasons under Harbaugh and six with Justin Herbert at quarterback.
Thompson could help in that regard. The Clarion Ledger in Jackson, Miss., told this story last year: When the future Chargers wideoout was 6, his mother signed him up for flag football in Texas.
She told her young son that she would reward him with $1 for every flag he grabbed, and $5 for every touchdown he scored. After the first game, the two had to make a trip to the ATM.
Seeing Tripp King flick a rubber ball toward the net with his stick is like spotting an unidentified flying object and wondering if you missed it because the shot happens faster than the blink of an eye.
His lacrosse coach at Loyola High, Jimmy Borell, brings out one of those baseball radar guns twice a year to clock how fast his players can send that ball through a net.
King’s right hand delivers the ball at 100 mph and his left hand at 90 mph.
“I pray he doesn’t cut the net,” Borell said.
In a sport that’s beloved on the East Coast, King is helping bring respect to lacrosse players learning the game on the West Coast.
He started lacrosse in kindergarten, showing up to participate in South Bay Lacrosse Club. By first grade, he was wearing lacrosse pads. He also played football and basketball. When he reached Loyola as a freshman, he was still a three-sport athlete, but he had become so talented in lacrosse that it became his focus.
“I always loved the speed of lacrosse,” said the junior. “I see that similarity in basketball. It’s always pulled me knowing you have to be good at everything instead of one particular skill.”
At 6 feet 1 and 200 pounds with the thick calves of a football player, he’s an attacker that every opponent must track. He’ll stand behind the net ready to receive the ball and make a pass to teammates who will quickly get the ball back to him for a goal with one flick of his wrist.
He had 102 points during the regular season (65 goals, 37 assists) for a Loyola team seeded No. 1 for the seven-team Southern Section Division 1 playoffs that begin this week. Loyola has a bye in the opening round and won’t play until May 9.
“He’s pretty special,” Borell said. “He’s got the tangibles, very skilled, can use both of his hands and has a very quick step.”
He’s committed to North Carolina, which is a dream come true since he was born to be a Tar Heel. Both of his parents went to North Carolina.
Tripp King, wearing No. 11, is an attacker for Loyola’s No. 1-ranked lacrosse team.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
“I’ve grown up a Tar Heel,” he said.
He’s also a kind, friendly future Tar Heel, something you can’t always say about lacrosse players who often feel they are either entitled or frustrated when people don’t pay enough attention to them.
Classmates swear by King.
“Nice,” is what several told me.
He returns to the South Bay Lacrosse Club to give back, working with young players just like when somebody helped him as a 5-year-old.
He’s someone ready to head to the East Coast determined to be proof of how determined West Coast players have become.
“A lot of the stereotypes of the West Coast are surfer boy or doesn’t take it seriously,” he said. “We’ve made it an atmosphere at Loyola where every day we’re waking up at 5 o’clock for 6 a.m. practices. We’re getting in extra work before and after practice. I think that lazier, not tough stereotype isn’t true. The West Coast is growing.”
King lives in Manhattan Beach, where celebrities and pro athletes can be seen walking or riding bikes on any given day.
King is only 17, but if he’s taking a walk or riding a bike, pay attention, because one day, he’s going to be recognized as lacrosse trendsetter from the West Coast.
Former USC receiver Makai Lemon was in Pittsburgh on Thursday night — and it appeared he would be staying there long term.
Until it very suddenly didn’t.
About two hours into the first round of the NFL draft, Lemon was sitting in the green room — the backstage area for players waiting to be picked — when he received a call from the host city’s home team. A celebration erupted around the former Los Alamitos High star as he was informed that the Steelers were about to select him with the 21st overall pick.
Lemon had one question:
“Why is Philly calling me?”
It turns out that Pittsburgh general manager Omar Khan was a bit premature with the call. The Dallas Cowboys were still on the clock at No. 20 but were expected to draft a defensive player. And that’s what they did with UCF edge rusher Malachi Lawrence — but only after trading down with an NFC East rival at No. 23.
The Philadelphia Eagles pulled off the last-second deal to move ahead of the Steelers and snatch away Lemon in real time. Footage from the green room shows a confused Lemon still on the phone with Pittsburgh but being told by someone in the room with him: “Philly just traded for you! … Philly’s taking you right now!”
“I answered the phone and it was the Steelers,” Lemon told reporters afterward. “My phone kept ringing. I look and it was the Eagles. They traded up, and they were going to pick me. I feel like everything happened for a reason. They traded up, so it means a lot that they really wanted me. So I’m all-in, and they’re going to get everything that I’ve got.”
Eagles general manager Howie Roseman acknowledged in a news conference that “it took us a couple minutes to contact the player” after they had moved into position to pick him.
“The clock got down a little bit lower than we would have liked,” Roseman said, “but we were able to get in touch with him and obviously select him.”
Roseman was asked if the Eagles made the move because they thought the Steelers were about to draft Lemon at No. 21.
“We just felt like this was a player that we wanted to go up and get, just based on where our board was at that time, where we were picking,” Roseman said. “Just felt like it made a lot of sense based on our board. And obviously, when you have a player that you like that’s ranked higher on your board than where you’re picking, you think at every pick that he’s going to be selected.
“That’s just the way the draft is, you think everyone’s thinking the way that you are. And so certainly for us, we didn’t want to sit on our hands. We wanted to go get him. And so that’s why I made a trade.”
The Steelers pivoted quickly, choosing Arizona State offensive tackle Max Iheanachor moments later.
Last season at USC, Lemon was a consensus All-American and won the Biletnikoff Award for outstanding receiver after making 79 catches for 1,156 yards and 11 touchdowns. In his three seasons with the Trojans, Lemon had 137 catches for 2,008 yards and 14 touchdowns.
Lemon’s arrival in Philadelphia would seem to indicate that the Eagles are ready to move on from star receiver A.J. Brown, who has been rumored to be on the trading block. If they wait until June 1 to trade Brown, the Eagles would be able to split his $40-million salary cap hit over two seasons.
Roseman didn’t have any light to shed on the matter Thursday night.
“A.J. is a member of the Eagles,” Roseman said. “We don’t have any trades that have been made or that are done. We’re taking this one day at a time. We’re going to look to improve the team tomorrow. We’ll continue to address anything we have to with our roster, not only through this draft weekend, but we’ll continue to look for ways to improve the team throughout the offseason and into training camp.”
PITTSBURGH — Daniel Jeremiah traces his rise as an NFL draft analyst to two seemingly unrelated events: a prominent football reporter showing up in his living room to visit a televangelist, and randomly bumping into a college roommate of his brother in a press box.
First, understand that Jeremiah is not just one in a sea of people evaluating pro prospects. He’s highly respected in the industry and, in addition to his radio work as a color analyst for Chargers games, has been the NFL Network’s go-to expert when it comes to breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of players and how they fit with a given franchise.
The former college quarterback is glib, quick on his feet and meticulously organized. Reporters turn to him — his pre-draft conference calls with NFL writers from coast to coast have sometimes lasted more than two hours — and super-secretive team scouts trust “DJ” as a peer, an extra set of eyes.
“I like to joke that I can kind of be a cross-checker for these teams,” said Jeremiah, 48, who lives in El Cajon, where he once set San Diego records for passing yards and touchdowns at Christian High. “So they’ll call and say, ‘Hey, where do you have this guy? What do you think of this player?’”
Jeremiah was once part of that world. He was a college scout with the Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles. But his path from quarterback at Northeastern Louisiana and Appalachian State to where he is now was anything but a straight line. It was a more unpredictable and roundabout route than any offensive coordinator would dare draw.
Roll back the clock 40 years, when his father, David Jeremiah, was the senior pastor at a Baptist church in El Cajon. Every Sunday, he would go from pew to pew greeting parishioners. Young Daniel was at his side and doing the same, perfecting a firm handshake, practicing looking people in the eye.
The elder Jeremiah would go on to launch an international radio and television ministry. His son, who remains devout, would eventually carve out a career preaching the gospel of the NFL to an audience of millions. Daniel’s description of player traits are digestible and entertaining, whether it’s his own phraseology or the language he learned after more than two decades in the business.
Daniel Jeremiah speaks with a reporter ahead of the NFL draft in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
(Ed Rieker / Associated Press)
An unflinching running back might “choose violence,” a team that builds the line before adding skill-position talent is “putting the hardware store before the toy store,” and an edge rusher who passes the “wet paint” test can get around the corner with such lean that “If he played on a field of wet paint, he did not have a drop of paint on him at the end of the game.”
Said Charlie Yook, executive producer of content for NFL Network: “Daniel is hilarious, a funny guy. It’s a different type of humor. He doesn’t swear. He kind of has that schoolish, boyish, sarcastic type of humor, but it’s still something that everyone can relate to.”
Now, for that renown football reporter who showed up in his living room. It was the late Chris Mortensen, who covered the NFL for ESPN and regularly listened on Sunday mornings to the preachings of Dr. David Jeremiah. In 1998, when San Diego played host to the Super Bowl between Denver and Green Bay, Mortensen used the opportunity to meet his favorite radio minister. The elder Jeremiah invited him over to the house for lunch. Daniel was a college freshman home on winter break. He and Mortensen instantly bonded, and the reporter asked if he’d like to attend Super Bowl media day. Later, he invited the young man to join him at the draft in New York, giving him an assignment to work the phones.
Mortensen would give his landline number at the draft to all the team general managers, reporters and other contacts around the league. Jeremiah manned the phone “like a secretary,” took notes and relayed them during commercial breaks. Already showing a knack for organization, Jeremiah kept index cards sorted by division and by tracked receiver and cornerback needs, keeping tabs on which of those players went there.
“That draft was bigger than this draft for me personally,” Jeremiah said, sitting in the stands at an NFL event in Pittsburgh before a cluster of reporters would surround him for final observations on how the first round would unfold.
So a straight line from there to a Mortensen-like role with NFL Network? Hardly. Jeremiah’s next job was with ESPN’s “Sunday Night Football” and a gig that was football-adjacent. He traveled with that crew as a production assistant, but his role was lining up the scenic footage in every city. Say it was a Rams game in St. Louis, he was the one setting up a shoot at a root beer factory so the network had something local to show coming in and out of commercials.
He did that for two years, but eventually his knowledge of the game as a onetime quarterback made him too valuable to waste. The crew put a headset on him and he would be another set of eyes for camera operators and people in the production truck. What cornerback got beat on that play? He knew. Who’s warming up on the sideline? He was watching. How many times has the defense blitzed? He was keeping track. It was a dream job.
“I was a pig in slop,” Jeremiah said.
But it was but one slop stop in his budding career. While walking through a press box at a game, he bumped into his brother’s old college roommate, T.J. McCreight, who was scouting for the Ravens.
“He goes, ‘Hey, do you think you’d ever have any interest in scouting,’” Jeremiah recalled. “I said, ‘I’ve never … I mean, I love the draft and all that stuff. But I’ve never even thought about scouting, but yeah, absolutely I’d have interest in that.’”
Daniel Jeremiah speaks during a news conference at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis on Feb. 25.
(Gregory Payan / Associated Press)
Soon enough, he was meeting with Ravens executives who gave him a volunteer assignment at the combine, very high-level stuff.
“I filled the candy jar every day,” he said. “I helped get the players into the interview rooms and all that.”
But he was on his way to eventually spending four years with Baltimore, then following player-personnel director Phil Savage to his GM job with Cleveland, scouting the entire country out of Southern California. When the Browns went 4-12 in 2008, Savage and his hires, Jeremiah among them, were shown the door.
Jeremiah spent two more years with Philadelphia as a West Coast scout before taking an analyst job with NFL Network. He could do the same type of player evaluation without the zig-zagging travel, much better for a father of four.
“I left scouting,” he said. “Scouting didn’t leave me.”
The draft is his Super Bowl, and he’s aware that it’s usually the biggest day in the lives of NFL hopefuls. He keeps that in mind, especially when he’s delivering an honest critique of a player.
“I’m very cognizant of that,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s a right way to do this job or a wrong way. I just know the way that I’ve approached it, and I feel like you could really eviscerate someone on what’s literally the best day of his life. Yeah, I will never do that.”
It’s a delicate balance, though, because he wants to remain true to his scouting beliefs.
“I might not necessarily have a player going to a team,” he said. “But I can try to explain to you why I think that team did what they did. That keeps me from saying a bunch of negative things about a player. I’m not trying to kill the kid, right?”
Said Yook: “There are 200-something guys getting drafted over these three days. You don’t suck if you get drafted in the NFL. Doesn’t matter if you’re pick No. 1 or the last pick. He understands that there’s a very small percentage of people who actually get to touch grass in the National Football League.”
What’s more, people can follow all sorts of twisting paths to success. Jeremiah needs no reminder. Preaching to the choir.
Kings coach D.J. Smith gave his team the day off Friday, but he sent his players home with a message: if they don’t show up for work Sunday, they’ll have the rest of the spring and summer off, too.
Players don’t like to call any game a “must-win” because of the pressure it brings, but there’s no other way to look at Sunday’s game for the Kings. After losing the first three games of their best-of-seven playoff series with the Colorado Avalanche, the Kings are one loss away from being eliminating in the first round for a fifth consecutive season.
“Must-win game,” agreed defenseman Drew Doughty, who hasn’t played on a winning team in a playoff series since the Kings last won the Stanley Cup in 2014. “Everyone’s going to give everything and we’ve got to win that one. And then hopefully go back to Denver.”
The most recent loss came Thursday when the Avs scored two fluky goals on pucks that bounced in off the skates of Kings players and put another one into an empty net in a 4-2 victory that pushed the Kings to the brink of elimination once again.
“You don’t like the result,” Smith said. “And it’s tough to swallow.”
For Colorado, the best team in the NHL during the regular season, it hasn’t been the most stylish of postseasons. But after a pair of hard-fought 2-1 wins at home, the Avs have a chance to sweep a playoff series for the first time since 2022, when they won their last Stanley Cup.
“All the games have been tight. We’re right there,” forward Quinton Byfield said. “Each guy, including myself, we just have to give a little bit more.
“We’re doing the right things, we just have to dig in a little bit more.”
It’s hard to say how. The Kings’ power play has been good, scoring a goal in each of the three games, and their penalty kill even better, shutting out the top-scoring team in the NHL on nine tries with a man advantage.
The Kings have been physical and fast and goaltender Anton Forsberg has been brilliant in his first career playoff series, making 90 saves in the three games. Yet none of that has paid off with a win.
“Sometimes you play real well for stretches and you don’t get the results. And then you’ll win a game you don’t deserve to win,” Smith said. “Maybe we didn’t stay with it long enough.”
“Those games are over with,” a frustrated Byfield added. “You can’t look back at those games. It’s just on to the next one, that’s our focus.”
Doughty said the Kings need to wear down the Avalanche, something they clearly couldn’t do in the two games played in Denver’s mile-high altitude. They might have a better chance Sunday at sea level.
“I don’t think we’re creating enough Grade A chances,” he said. “They’re statistically one of the best teams in the neutral zone. So for us to beat them, we’ve got to wear them down in the D zone, make them tired and score goals that way. We haven’t done that enough.”
Every team has its kryptonite and the for the Kings that appears to be the first round of the playoffs. Over the past dozen seasons, the team has gone 9-27 in the postseason, taking a series to a seventh game just once in six tries. Along the way they’ve changed general mangers twice, changed head coaches five times and even changed their opponents, facing the Avs this year after losing four straight series to the Edmonton Oilers.
None of that has changed the results.
Smith, in fact, is an interim coach, having taken over for Jim Hiller with 23 games left in the regular season. He figures to be coaching for his future Sunday since a playoff sweep won’t look good at his resume.
“There’s no quit in there,” Smith said of the Kings’ locker room. “We’ll get reset with practice [Saturday] and I think you’re going to see our best effort.
“Now we’ve got to make a few changes and see if we can spark something.”
If that works, the Kings will be heading back to Denver. If it doesn’t, they’ll be heading home for another long summer.
Hughton then moved into management, where he guided both Newcastle and Brighton to promotion to the Premier League.
He also had spells in charge of Birmingham, Norwich and Nottingham Forest, and was most recently manager of Ghana.
“I had very good advice and all the treatment options were given to me, and I decided to have my prostate removed. The recovery has gone really well,” he added.
“I’m one year post-operation and I feel good. It’s all gone very well. I’ve got a lot of energy.”
Prostate Cancer UK chief executive Laura Kerby said: “Chris’ story is ultimately a positive one. But it’s also a timely reminder of the dangers of prostate cancer and we thank him for sharing his story in the football community, and helping men.
“Prostate cancer is now the most common cancer in the UK, and it’s still the only major cancer without a screening programme. It doesn’t give you signs or symptoms in its earlier stages when it’s more treatable, so awareness is everything.”
Welcome to this week’s Lakers newsletter, where we’re playing chess, not checkers.
The intensity has picked up now that the playoffs have started. The Lakers won Game 1 against the Houston Rockets and now the fun begins. Coaches tinker with their game plans trying to capitalize on every perceived advantage. Players are locked in intense multi-game matchups. For a self-proclaimed basketball sicko such as JJ Redick, it’s almost basketball nirvana.
“Every day I wake up, I’m excited to go to work,” Redick said. “Every day feels exciting.”
All things Lakers, all the time.
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Playoff DA
Days before the game, on the day of the game and the day after the Lakers’ playoff opener, Redick fielded different versions of the same question.
How influential will Deandre Ayton be in these playoffs?
“The ceiling for our team is maximized when he’s playing at a high level,” Redick said Monday, one day after Ayton’s 19-point, 11-rebound double-double highlighted the Lakers’ Game 1 win. “I remember saying that three times already in the last week. I don’t know how else to answer that.”
Facing consistent scrutiny as the Lakers’ biggest X factor, Ayton now needs to deliver consistent performances in the playoffs. Just one impressive performance won’t be enough to silence critics.
Ayton sent a solid statement in Game 1. In addition to shooting 80% from the field, Ayton helped hold Rockets All-Star center Alperen Sengun to 19 points on six-of-19 shooting. The Lakers’ defense, anchored by Ayton on the back line, smothered Houston. Playing without Kevin Durant, who was a late scratch with a right knee contusion, the Rockets shot just 37.6% from the field.
“I really tried my best to show [Redick] that I’m here and I’m ready throughout those practices just being super and extremely consistent,” Ayton said after the Lakers’ playoff opening win Saturday. “I couldn’t wait to just beat up on somebody else in the first game.”
In front of a buzzing Crypto.com Arena crowd, Ayton made his presence felt early. He scored the Lakers’ first points with a turnaround floater in the lane. He caught two two lobs for dunks. The Lakers’ crowd erupted each time.
Ayton, after two lost years in Portland, hadn’t experienced that thrill in too long.
“It got my blood boiling a little bit,” Ayton said of not playing in the postseason since 2023.
Ayton’s career was fading in Portland. He became known more for inconsistent play and lagging energy than his soft shooting touch or defensive prowess. He looked at the two-year, $16.6-million contract with a player option from the Lakers as a lifeline. It felt like the last chance for him to prove he could still be that player who started for the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Finals.
Ayton averaged 14.7 points, 12 rebounds and 1.5 blocks on 53.1% shooting in the 2021 Finals series against the Milwuakee Bucks. When speaking of Lakers players with playoff experience, LeBron James always leads the conversation, but Redick, conscious of Ayton’s importance to this team, never leaves out Ayton’s playoff past.
There is still a reason why Ayton was the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, center Jaxson Hayes said.
“When it comes to this serious time of year, like playoffs, he already knows,” Hayes said. “He’s been there, and so he knows what to do. He just came locked in. And I loved it. It was awesome.”
The Lakers were 22-3 in the regular season when Ayton took 10 or more shot attempts and 15-1 in games when he had 11 or rebounds. The trend continued in the playoffs when Ayton made eight of 10 shots in Game 1. He grabbed his 11th rebound in the final seconds.
Ayton’s dominance allowed Hayes to “take a chill day,” the backup center joked. But both big men aren’t resting on one successful game.
“We’re not gonna sit here and take this for granted,” Ayton said. “We have to take care of home court, and that’s our job.”
Gang’s all here
Luka Doncic, left, and Austin Reaves chat as they sit on the bench during Game 1 against Houston.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Each seat in Crypto.com Arena for Game 1 was carefully decorated with a yellow T-shirt featuring every Lakers player and Redick. Each photo, a little black-and-white headshot, was the same size arranged in a grid, symbolizing unity from everyone on the Lakers’ bench. On the free T-shirt and in real life, the Lakers brought the entire band together just in time for the playoffs as Luka Doncic reunited with the team Saturday.
The superstar guard is still out indefinitely while rehabbing a Grade 2 hamstring strain, but his presence on the bench at least offered a timely morale boost.
“I think people don’t know how much impact Luka has, not only on the court, but off the court,” forward Rui Hachimura said. “He’s a guy that always wants to be around with us. We love him just being around, just hanging out, talking. So, yeah, we’re happy that he’s back finally and he’s doing funny things always.”
While continuing treatment for his injury, Doncic’s role at practice was limited to rebounding and passing the ball in shooting drills. He and Reaves helped distract teammates during free-throw shooting drills at the end of practice Monday and engaged in a quick game of rock-paper-scissors while Jarred Vanderbilt was at the free-throw line. After their shared agent Bill Duffy helped Hayes get a Slovenian passport to potentially play internationally together, Doncic has been calling the 7-foot center from Cincinnati “my Slovenian brother.”
Doncic adds his joyful energy to a typically tense time. Maintaining that balance of lightness and focus has been key for the Lakers all season. Like how Redick often describes when Doncic is at his best, the Lakers look their best when they’re having fun too.
In the final seconds of Saturday’s Game 1, when the Lakers were dribbling out the clock, Hachimura was standing dutifully in the corner in front of the Lakers’ bench with his hands up ready for a pass. Doncic playfully smacked his teammate on the head several times.
Hachimura had no recollection of the moment. That’s just life with Doncic.
“I’m used to it,” Hachimura said.
On tap
Tuesday vs. Rockets, 7:30 p.m.
The Lakers have a chance to go up 2-0 in a playoff series for the first time since the 2020 NBA Finals.
Friday at Rockets, 5 p.m. PDT
The Lakers have lost nine consecutive road playoff games. The last postseason win on the road came in Game 1 of the second round in 2023 against Golden State. The Lakers won that series in six and advanced to the Western Conference finals.
Sunday at Rockets, 6:30 p.m. PDT
Maybe the Lakers are going for the sweep Sunday. If not, they will at least get two days’ rest before Game 5 back in L.A.
Status report
Luka Doncic (left hamstring strain)
Doncic is still out indefinitely but at least reunited with the team Saturday after returning from Spain. Redick said Doncic is in good spirits to be back with his teammates, and he sat on the bench for Saturday’s Game 1.
Austin Reaves (left oblique strain)
Reaves is working diligently with hopes of returning this postseason. Like Doncic, he had an initial four- to six-week recovery timeline, which would make April 30 the roughly four-week mark.
Kevin Durant (right knee contusion)
The Rockets superstar missed Game 1 after banging his knee in practice last week. He was a game-time decision Saturday and remains questionable for Tuesday’s Game 2.
Favorite thing I ate this week
Duck tsukune meatballs and wagyu beef tongue skewers from RVR in Venice.
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
My friends heard conflicting opinions about RVR — a new izakaya on Abbot Kinney — so, naturally, we had to investigate.
Our verdict is all the thumbs up.
The menu rotates so often that between sitting down and ordering, our server handed us new menus because the kitchen got a different batch of produce from the farmers market that morning.
There were waves of small shareable plates and we started with the duck tsukune meatballs and wagyu beef tongue skewers (pictured). The meatballs are among the most popular dishes on the menu, our server told us. The beef tongue wasn’t popular at all, he said, but they were his favorite. We’re on his side. He said the beef tongue is brined for days in dashi, and the care shows in the beautifully tender pieces; we cut one of the cubes with the skewer that it came on.
We had a seasonal blood orange and fennel salad, pan fried pork rib gyoza that came with a unique yozu kosho sauce, and wagyu beef keema curry. The miso-orange glaze-soaked mochi beignets were the ideal sweet treat.
Football can teach many life lessons and no one knows that better than Jazmin Gamble, the new varsity head coach at Hawthorne High.
As a woman in a male-dominated profession, one could define her as a trailblazer — and that would be accurate — but while she acknowledges the historical significance of what she is doing, Gamble is not letting it distract her from the task at hand — turning around a program that has fallen on hard times.
“It’s less about proving a point and more about giving all these boys a better experience,” Gamble said. “I’m not downplaying the impact of it, rather I want to leverage the attention in a way that benefits the players and opens doors for them. I’m elated and honored that the district saw my vision and said ‘this girl can do that.’ I have to ask myself how I can use this opportunity to spotlight our team.”
Gamble, who turns 36 in June, is a running back and linebacker for the Los Angeles Legends in the Women’s National Football Conference, a full-contact professional league consisting of 16 franchises across the United States.
Gamble was selected defensive player of the year in 2024 and offensive player of the year in 2025 when she gained a league-leading 549 yards rushing (averaging 11.9 yards per carry) while scoring three touchdowns.
“I tore my ACL my first season and was on injured reserve, but I came back in 2022 and have been playing ever since,” she said. “We made the playoffs last season but lost in the first round. We’re 2-1 right now with three games left. We played our first home game at Long Beach Poly, so the boys got to see their coach in action. We won 23-0 and I scored a touchdown, but it got called back due to holding.”
Hawthorne High football coach Jazmin Gamble calls for her players to huddle during a recent practice.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
The Legends’ next home game is April 25 against the Utah Falconz at St. Anthony Sports Complex in Lakewood.
“This is my last year playing, but I’ve been wanting to transition more into coaching,” said Gamble, a certified personal trainer and fitness instructor who started a business 10 years ago called the Jazz Standard. “I first heard about the job through my coaching network and it sounded very appealing. I applied, I interviewed and I got it. Football takes up so much of your time and energy. I’ve done enough in this sport. This is a good time for me to stop, and although this is my first crack as a football head coach I’ve been coaching athletes for six or seven years, including some of my teammates, and they got better.”
A Bakersfield native, Gamble was an exceptional all-around athlete. Growing up she was a gymnast and a cheerleader. She played club volleyball, ran track and played basketball while attending four high schools, two in Bakersfield and two in the Bay Area, and graduated from Mt. Diablo High in Concord.
Upon moving to Los Angeles 13 years ago, she was in survival mode.
“I was homeless and slept in the back seat of my car for a couple of months until I got a job in human resources,” she recalled. “I started training and working in the fitness field and after struggling to make it for a few years I decided I wanted to be a business owner and things took off from there. Now I have 33 active clients that I see two to four times a week and even train the No. 2 rusher in the WNFC.”
Gamble lives in Inglewood but her business is in Gardena near Serra High, where she got involved behind the scenes with the flag football team before the sport was officially sanctioned by the CIF in 2023.
“A few of those girls trained with me and I learned to adopt a different schematic approach. Boys are playing football as early as 5 or 6 years old, whereas women are starting at 20 or even their early 30s and their bodies aren’t prepared for it. I didn’t start playing tackle until I was 31.”
Gamble is still assembling a staff but one of her assistants will be her brother, Kenneth Davis, a former receiver at Liberty High in Bakersfield.
Hawthorne does not have a junior varsity team. There were 29 players on the roster last year and nine graduated.
“On Day 1, I had 22 come to the weight room,” Gamble said. “Some players are in track right now, but in May I’ll have ‘em all. My strong suit is development so I’m ready for this. Right now, we’re at ground zero. We’ve only had a handful of practices, mainly conditioning. The boys have been super receptive. I’m just going to be me!”
Hawthorne went 2-8 last season, finishing fourth in the Ocean League and being outscored by 281 points. The Cougars were shut out three times.
“Jazmin’s a breath of fresh air,” said athletic director Mario Romero, who was involved in the hiring process. “She’s brought enthusiasm across the entire school community and I’m excited about where her leadership is going to take us.”
Hawthorne High football coach Jazmin Gamble shows her players how to run a drill during practice.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
Fifteen players showed up for a one-hour workout Wednesday at HalCap Field. One of them was quarterback Anthony Green, who played in the last two games as a sophomore last year after transferring from King/Drew and is the projected starter next season.
“She made a good impression,” he said. “I like the workouts — they’re very intense — and I like the competition. Coach expects a lot and she pushes us.”
Gamble put her players through a series of drills to test their stamina, quickness and technique. The penalty for walking was push-ups.
“Everything out here is earned … may the best man win!’ she shouted.
“Her practices are intense — she knows what she’s doing,” added junior linebacker Adrian Lopez, who was an All-League first teamer last fall. “She has a home game coming up and I think I’ll go out and watch. My goal for us is to have at least a .500 season and make the playoffs.”
Gamble is not the first female to coach varsity football at Hawthorne. Monique Boone was the varsity defensive line and assistant offensive line coach in 2021 under previous head coach Corey Thedford. However, overseeing the entire program puts Gamble in rarefied air.
What convinced Romero that Gamble was the right person for the job?
“Her background, her skill set and also the fact that she plays the sport herself at a high level,” he said.
