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New reports have revealed that Jaden Ivey’s issues with the Chicago Bulls front office predated his viral anti-LGBTQ Instagram videos. Ivey was cut by the Bulls for conduct detrimental to the team earlier this week.
According to Chicago Sun-Times beat reporter Joe Cowley, before Jaden Ivey even arrived in Chicago to play with the Bulls, there were rumblings from his time with the Detroit Pistons that he was a “preacher,” with his media availability sessions becoming sermons in which he asked reporters whether they had been “saved” and if they had “fornicated before marriage.”
“The world proclaims LGBTQ, right? They proclaim Pride Month and the NBA does too. They show it to the world. They say, ‘Come join us for Pride Month to celebrate unrighteousness.’ They proclaim it on the billboards. They proclaim it in the streets. Unrighteousness. So how is it that one can’t speak righteousness?” Ivey said on Instagram.
Cowley reported that the Pride Month comments Ivey made on Instagram were a “final straw” for the organization, with his constant religious preaching, labeling teammates as “righteous or unrighteous,” and disrupting of the locker room leading the team to view his behavior as workplace “weirdness.”
Reports indicate that the Chicago Bulls were becoming fed up with Jaden Ivey’s behavior long before his viral anti-LGBTQ comments on Instagram
“There was more than this going on… and the locker room won’t shed a tear,” Cowley reported.
After being waived, Ivey again went live on Instagram to blast the Bulls and the NBA, while also claiming that Stephen Curry, LeBron James, and Michael Jordan “don’t know Jesus Christ.” Ivey also disputed the conduct detrimental ruling, arguing he’d spent his time rehabbing and not interacting with teammates.
“Did I say ‘You suck’ to the players? That would be detrimental to the team, right?” Ivey reasoned.
He’s also claimed that other teams won’t sign him because they think “he’s too religious” and that his wife is no longer responding to his text messages.
Ivey was selected by the Detroit Pistons out of Purdue University with the 5th overall pick in the 2022 NBA Draft.