The Firing of Jaden Ivey: More Than Just Basketball Stats
On March 30 2026, the Chicago Bulls, a professional basketball team, fired a very talented athlete from their organization for the crime of standing on the unchanging values of the Bible (Thompson, 2026, April 1). His name is Jaden Ivey. He is, by all accounts, a good basketball player. Maybe not the best basketball player ever, but a professional athlete who, up until last week, played for one of the most important sports franchises of all time. In his first professional season, Jaden was averaging about 17.6 Points Per Game (PPG) (Basketball Reference, n.d.). In the current 2025-2026 NBA season, Jaden switched teams, moving from the Detroit Pistons to the Chicago Bulls. In this transition, Jaden has maintained a slightly lower PPG average of only 11.5. I think the decrease in his points per game was due to being on a new team and learning to work with new players, their egos, and the team’s coaching parameters.
On merit alone, Jaden continued to be a key player this season – up until he was cut from the team; based on the evidence, he was often driving the ball to the hoop. Since that is the essence of the game, he was doing well! However, this writing is not about Ivey’s talent on the court, and I know very little about basketball, other than that shoes squeak quite a bit when the game is played on the wooden arena floors on television. I would also say that Michael Jordan is hailed as the greatest player in the game, who also famously played for the Bulls. (Rather humorously, the name “Bulls” is itself a nod to the deity the Israelites worshiped in the desert some 4,000 years ago.) But as it stands, Ivey is a very brave and standalone person. Yet Ivey is now being labeled broadly online as having “psychosis” (McKenna, 2026, April 2). He has been totally canceled for only really having one “crime”: he did not want to honor Pride Month, the NBA holds each year, and by vocalizing the biblical stance, his words were not reflective of the larger population and because he went openly against the cult of popularity and the zeitgeist of popular culture and he was consequently removed from his team.
From what I understand, Jaden will continue to receive payments from the remainder of the 2025-2026 NBA season. All told, Ivey will receive approximately 10 million dollars more this year, which is obviously a lot more than most of us can ever imagine earning in a lifetime. Yet with all of Jaden Ivey’s raw talent, he will not play anymore for the Chicago Bulls team – or maybe any NBA team. Obviously, next season will be a key year for Ivey as it will determine if his career in sports is now over. The Chicago Bulls and other professional sports teams occupy an odd space: they represent the nation and its values, yet they are independent companies.
Labeled as “Psychosis”: The Media’s Response to Street Preaching
Billy Donovan, the coach for the Chicago Bulls, said Jaden’s decision to claim the Bible as his source of truth lacked “professionalism” and went against the “organizational standards” of the team (Associated Press, 2026, March 30). Obviously, the team has standards that are not Biblical or in line with God or His Word. Later, Ivey was observed on social media preaching on the street, as a recently surfaced video showed. This link leads to an entire news story from FOX 26 in Houston, TX, which also shows the clip. The commentators on the aforementioned show basically addressed Jaden as being mentally unstable. They also repeatedly asked him to seek professional help for taking a stand on the Bible and for not being willing to ask for forgiveness from his former team and his fan base. In my opinion, Jaden’s continued commitment to God’s word will bring him even further in his career than Coach Donovan or playing for the Bulls could ever take him!
Biblical Precedents: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – the Field of Great Price
The cancellation of Jaden Ivey by the Chicago Bulls may seem like a powerful and permanent move, but it is not bigger than God. These political actions, however, make it clear that standing for God’s word is increasingly against the law in the so-called “free” world of the West. In cases like Ivey, it shows that constitutionally protected speech is held to a very limited, or case-by-case, standard. All politics aside, if your beliefs were contrary to the popular direction, would you be willing to walk away from a lucrative career? The Bible says that Jaden is more than right; he is heroic – based on examples like Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego (Daniel 3:12). The Bible also says that anyone who follows Christ will be persecuted (2 Timothy 3:12); this happens when you put God first and therefore love the Lord God with all your heart (Matthew 22:37–40). The Bible also says that you are to sell everything and buy the “field”, like Jaden has in his waving of a lucrative career in professional sports, and use all your strength and intelligence to dig in that field and find the pearl there, which is “the Gospel” (Matthew 13:44). The field is clearly seeking God, reading the Bible, and meditating on all of its truths. The field also represents living an uncompromised life, one that exclusively focuses on God and on doing what He tells you to do. It is an individual pathway. The route that God has for Jaden is unique to him, just like anyone else’s pathway. But like Jaden, we are supposed to be willing to go all in, even if we get canceled completely, as Jaden has experienced.
The Law of Scarcity: Why “Canceling” the Bible will Only Increases Its Value
I think that the more the Bible is canceled, the more controversially it will be viewed, which is ultimately a positive thing in the Western world and for scripture, helping to catapult a revival here. To label the Bible as a dangerous book with harmful ideas only ultimately increases its value. What these large sports teams and politicians do not understand about trying to push the bible down is that they are only validating its value and verifying it as the only truth. The law of presence and absence demonstrates this, a concept discussed by Robert Greene in his book The 48 Laws of Power (Greene, 1998). This concept postulates that cheap things are readily available, whereas highly valued things are less so – like the Bible. It is essentially the same concept as the law of supply and demand, which similarly posits that prices increase when demand decreases (Hayes, 2024, March 18). When applying this to the Jaden Ivery case, when the system that platforms the person changes the ability to speak freely, it will therefore increase the demand for anyone willing to speak freely. The Chicago Bulls did Ivey a huge favor and made him a mega-celebrity. I think, all told, Ivey is sitting on a launching pad, and although the next year immediately following this very public firing from his high-profile sports job may be tough, he will be wildly more successful outside the NBA, like Tim Tebow. I think Jaden Ivey has a bright future as a celebrity evangelist of sorts, with much more appeal than he ever had before this cancellation!
Evangelism Without Judgment: My Take on the LGBTQ Conversation
Here is my take on the topic. I generally stay out of the LGBTQ conversation to focus my attention on salvation. This approach is based on Ray Comfort’s (2019) book, Faith is for Weak People, which suggests that the Holy Spirit helps individuals turn from sin once their walk with the Lord is established.
Far too often, religious protesters show up to pride events with genuine hate in their hearts. These individuals bring a volume of shouting and anger that is the opposite of how God loves each of us, including each member of the LGBTQ community. There is rarely enough love shown toward neighbors who hold opposing views in typical LGBTQ-focused evangelism outreach events. (In contrast, I think Bryce Crawford does an excellent job because he shows consistent love in every interaction.)
When evangelism hyper-focuses on judgment, it creates an emotional barrier that drives people away from Christ. Whether the topic is sexuality, premarital sex, pornography, or substance abuse, or any other sin, each sin is no different to God, and all are treated the same. Any time we try to evangelize the lost using heavy judgments, it always harms the mission of changing hearts for Jesus. Unless God explicitly leads you or me to address a specific sin, leading with condemnation hinders a person from accepting Jesus, which is the quintessential step in salvation, as found in Romans 10:9.
However, the real question is this: if God explicitly asks you to stand on His word and to call out sin, will you do it? No matter the consequences or the cost—even if it means forfeiting a 10-million-dollar contract—will you be like Jaden Ivey and do exactly what God says?
References:
Associated Press. (2026, March 30). Bulls cut Jaden Ivey after anti-LGBTQ rant. MSN. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/insight/bulls-cut-jaden-ivey-after-anti-lgbtq-rant/gm-GM53256BDE
Basketball Reference. (n.d.). Jaden Ivey stats. Sports Reference. Retrieved April 9, 2026, from https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/i/iveyja01.html
Basketnews.com. (2026, March 31). Jaden Ivey’s $10 million question answered after being waived by Bulls. https://basketnews.com/news-244163-jaden-iveys-10-million-question-answered-after-being-waived-by-bulls.html
Comfort, R. (2019). Faith is for weak people: Responding to the top 20 objections to the gospel. Baker Books
FOX 26 Houston. (2026, April 7). NBA star Jaden Ivey spotted street preaching after controversial exit [Video]. https://www.fox26houston.com/video/fmc-1wcnm0p762wkpvwx
Greene, R. (1998). The 48 laws of power. Viking Press.
Hayes, A. (2024, March 18). Law of supply and demand: Definition and real-world examples. Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/law-of-supply-demand.asp
McKenna, S. (2026, April 2). Jaden Ivey lost his mind, and then his job. Defector. https://defector.com/jaden-ivey-lost-his-mind-and-then-his-job
Thompson, D. (2026, April 1). Why Jaden Ivey was cut. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/04/jaden-ivey-cut-bulls/686713/