SAN ANTONIO \u2014 The Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivey on Monday in the wake of anti-LGBTQ comments and remarks about religion he made in videos on his Instagram account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey proclaim Pride Month in the NBA,\u201d he said. \u201cThey proclaim it. They show it to the world. They say come join us for Pride, for Pride Month to celebrate unrighteousness. They proclaim it. They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness. So how is it that one can’t speak righteousness? How are they to say that this man is crazy?\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Billy Donovan said the Bulls have employees from \u201call different walks of life” and Ivey’s comments don’t reflect the values of the organization. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody comes with their own personal experiences, but one is we\u2019ve got to all be professional,\u201d Donovan said prior to Chicago’s game at San Antonio. “I think there\u2019s got to be a high level of respect for one another, and we\u2019ve got to help each other and then be accountable to those standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an Instagram live conducted on an airplane hours after the Bulls let him go, Ivey again spoke at length about religion. He said the championship rings LeBron James and Michael Jordan earned are \u201cnot gonna matter on judgment day.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also insisted he \u201cdidn’t get myself waived\u201d and that other teams won’t sign him because they think \u201che’s too religious.\u201d He said he was in the gym, rehabbing and \u201cdoing what was required of me in my job\u201d on Monday.<\/p>\n
At one point, a flight attendant asked him to end the session because the plane was about ready to depart and the cellphone could interfere with the communication systems. He continued to discuss religion for about another minute before wrapping it up.<\/p>\n
Ivey has spoken this season about dealing with depression. He recently started posting lengthy videos expressing his thoughts about religion on Instagram.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow is it when the gospel is preached that people hate it?\u201d Ivey said. \u201cThat people don’t want to hear it? And they think it’s strange when someone preaches the gospel, the true gospel?\u201d<\/p>\n
Chicago acquired Ivey from Detroit in a three-team trade on Feb. 3. He had an expiring contract.<\/p>\n
The Bulls shut him down for the remainder of the season last week after being sidelined since Feb. 11 with a sore left knee. He averaged 8.5 points in 37 games this season, including four for Chicago.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t want to get into what he put out there, but certainly, I hope for him he’s okay,\u201d Donovan said. \u201cI’ve had conversations with Jaden and he’s always been about rehabbing his knee and trying to get on the court and wanting to play. But I think organizationally, there are certain standards we want to have as an organization and try to live up to those each and every day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 The Chicago Bulls waived guard Jaden Ivey on Monday in the wake of anti-LGBTQ comments…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":689634,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3771],"tags":[7,920,919,329,3824,6,2148],"class_list":{"0":"post-689633","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-bulls","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bulls","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-bulls","12":"tag-chicagobulls","13":"tag-nba","14":"tag-wires-bot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116323227605210625","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=689633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/689633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/689634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=689633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=689633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=689633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}