Shortly after the Magic drafted Isaac with the sixth overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, Isaac got inspiration in an unlikely place.
Orlando Magic forward Jonathan Isaac was in the spotlight in 2020 for neither taking the COVID-19 vaccine, nor kneeling during the national anthem.
His faith, he said in a recent interview on Epoch TV’s “American Thought Leaders” with Jan Jekielek, guided these decisions.
But he was not always a man of faith.
“I didn’t really, really become a Christian until I got to the NBA,” he said. “But I grew up in the church, and so I had somewhat of a foundation.”
When times were good, he distanced himself from Christianity and tried to fit in with those around him. And when they were bad, he would go back to church.
Shortly after the Magic drafted Isaac with the sixth overall pick in the 2017 NBA Draft, Isaac got inspiration from an unlikely place.
“I’m getting into my new place, and I meet a guy on an elevator. And he says to me, ‘I can tell you how to be great,’” he said. “And I said, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘You have to know Jesus.’ And I was like, ‘Man, I know Jesus. Me and him are close.’ But I wasn’t living that way.”
That man would become Isaac’s pastor.
Refusing to Kneel During the National Anthem
During the 2020 season, race relations came to the forefront as the case of the police custody death of Minneapolis man George Floyd led to protests and riots in a number of cities across the country. Athletes sympathetic to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement were also still kneeling during the playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner” after it was popularized by San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick in 2016.
Isaac declined to kneel during the national anthem. But it was not due to opposition to BLM.
“I understood where the humanity and where it all was coming from,” he said. “But me, being a Christian, at the time, I was trying to figure out, ‘What does this mean?’” he said. “What is an appropriate response that honors the truth and that honors giving an answer toward progress.”
Isaac talked with friends and said that it is Jesus that can bring people together. But they rebuffed him.
Isaac took issue with BLM’s tone and rhetoric and came to realize that it was not for him.
By Jackson Richman and Jan Jekielek
