{"id":691871,"date":"2026-04-01T12:57:45","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T12:57:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/691871\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T12:57:45","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T12:57:45","slug":"jaden-ivey-apparently-asked-reporters-if-theyd-fornicated-before-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/691871\/","title":{"rendered":"Jaden Ivey apparently asked reporters if they’d fornicated before marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Chicago Bulls waived Jaden Ivey on Monday<\/a> after a series of anti-LGBTQ+ social media posts, but the story of how this all went sideways started well before the Instagram livestreams.<\/p>\n

Before Ivey ever arrived in Chicago, the word out of Detroit was that the shooting guard was something of a preacher. According to the Chicago Sun-Times,<\/a> his media sessions bore that out, with Ivey turning postgame availability into something closer to a revival meeting, asking reporters whether they had been \u201csaved\u201d and whether they had \u201cfornicated before marriage.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry but what https:\/\/t.co\/XjmwQCZylS<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/8MUxb9AV90<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) March 31, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

The Bulls acquired him at the trade deadline in February anyway, apparently without doing enough homework on what they were getting.<\/p>\n

I was told he did similar things in Detroit. He confronted reporters on the job about whether they were saved, and some Piston staff. Can\u2019t speak to what he did or didn\u2019t do in Chicago. https:\/\/t.co\/cu7y5e69X9<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) March 31, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Ivey, the No. 5 overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft out of Purdue, was acquired from Detroit at the trade deadline in February and played four games for Chicago before a left knee injury shut him down for the season. During that time, he posted a series of lengthy Instagram videos connecting his injury to his faith and questioning his former team\u2019s standing in the afterlife. The videos might have been tolerable in isolation, but the Bulls drew the line when Ivey went live on Instagram and called the NBA\u2019s celebration of Pride Month an endorsement of \u201cunrighteousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world can proclaim LGBTQ, right?\u201d Ivey said in the video<\/a>. \u201cThey proclaim Pride Month. And the NBA, they proclaim it. They show it to the world. They say, \u2018Come join us for Pride Month, to celebrate unrighteousness.\u2019 They proclaim it. They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bulls announced the waiving<\/a>, citing \u201cconduct detrimental to the team.\u201d ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania reported the move<\/a> before the official announcement, noting the anti-LGBTQ+ comments specifically.<\/p>\n

The decision to cut Ivey was the easy part. The Sun-Times\u2019 Joe Cowley argued that the fiasco is ultimately an indictment of the Bulls front office under executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas, that the acquisition itself reflected a broader pattern of due diligence failures, and that the Reinsdorf family missed an opportunity to clean house entirely when they waived Ivey rather than pairing the move with front office changes.<\/p>\n

The red flags, Cowley wrote, were there before Ivey ever set foot in Chicago.<\/p>\n

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