June 5, 2022 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
36:05
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
| Early on, before the league got shut down, you know, the team had brought a doctor in to talk to everybody, you know, tell everybody, okay, this is happening, a little bit about it. | ||
| And one of the first things he said was, masks do absolutely nothing. | ||
| And he was like, I'm just letting you guys know that apparently the way he phrased it was like, I guess the COVID particles were so small that they could pass through, you know, pretty much most masks, especially cloth masks. | ||
| So that was our first thing. | ||
| So when he first said that, I was like, OK, I'm not I'm not wearing a mask. | ||
| And then you have these mask mandates and things. | ||
| I'm like, what is going on? | ||
| And so. | ||
| So, yeah, it was pretty crazy in the bubble. | ||
| A lot of things didn't make sense, but we kind of just went along with it | ||
| because we wanted to play. | ||
|
unidentified
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♪♪ I'm Dave Rubin, and joining me today | |
| is a professional basketball player for the Orlando Magic and author of the new book, | ||
| Why I Stand, Jonathan Isaac, welcome to the Rubin Report. | ||
| What's up, Dave, man? | ||
| I'm excited to be here, excited to talk to you. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| All right, let's do it. | ||
| This is sort of your second time on the Rubin Report because I was in Orlando back in, what was it? | ||
| That was end of October and I was doing this NatCon event and I was like, hey, Jonathan Isaac's in Orlando. | ||
| Maybe I can drag him on stage. | ||
| And then you spoke in front of about 500 conservatives. | ||
| That was a little odd for you, but you pretty much brought the house down. | ||
| It was weird, you know, first time kind of even, I mean, outside of like church, but like really speaking in front of people and then it being, you know, a conservative event. | ||
| It was dope though. | ||
| You know, everybody was great. | ||
| I had a great time just learning and listening and getting a chance to talk to you and kind of just continue to push forward my message. | ||
| So let's start off with some basketball stuff, because you know that my dream was to be an NBA player. | ||
| You accomplished my dream, and you're pretty good at what I do. | ||
| That's what I said to you on stage. | ||
| You could be doing the talking thing for a living. | ||
| But you made it to the NBA, and we also have something else in common. | ||
| We both have a torn ACL. | ||
| So that has taken you out for these last two seasons. | ||
| Left or right knee for you? | ||
| Left knee. | ||
| Left knee for me too. | ||
| Tell me a little bit about just growing up playing hoops. | ||
| Did you always want to be in the NBA? | ||
| Did you think you could make it to the NBA? | ||
| Just the challenges there before we get into the book specifically. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, the book does a great job of just telling that story of growing up in Bronx, New York and playing at the rec center in the park with my dad. | ||
| And there is when I really just kind of like fell in love with the game. | ||
| Not so much Scoring and all that stuff, just the art of watching guys, you know, do what they do on the basketball court. | ||
| I was like, man, it's so cool to watch them go left to right and all these different things. | ||
| But I didn't know anything about basketball in the grand scheme of things. | ||
| So nothing about college, nothing about the NBA, nothing about conferences. | ||
| There's one story in the book where I'm getting recruited to go to to go to college to play ball. | ||
| And the coach is saying, you know, do you know what conference we're in? | ||
| And I'm like, well, what's a conference? | ||
| And I think for me to get to the NBA. | ||
| So it really to me is like a God thing that I'm here cause I never believed in it. | ||
| And so, yeah, I mean, I fell in love with it. | ||
| I pretty much put everything that I had into it, became the number one player in the state of Florida | ||
| coming, you know, getting out of high school to college. | ||
| And then, you know, it was a six pick to the Orlando Magic. | ||
| Did you always have great skills or was it kind of learned or a little bit of both? | ||
| I say all learned really. | ||
| Yeah, I love to watch the guys on the TV, but I could never do anything like that on the court. | ||
| The first time I got to play on an AAU team, they kicked me off the team without even telling me, and that's how bad I was. | ||
| And so my ride to practice just stopped coming to pick me up. | ||
| But it was definitely learning. | ||
| Like I got my first coach that really was like taking an interest in me because of my size was Bora. | ||
| And he's in the book as well. | ||
| And you know, he was the first one to teach me the fundamentals and develop. | ||
| And from there, I kind of, it was just like riding a bike. | ||
| I kind of just, you know, because I was watching so much and, you know, I found that passion in biking, the way that guys move, that kind of just picked it up and kind of went from there. | ||
| Were you tall immediately or were you late spurt or what? | ||
| I had a decent, I guess like a journey of a spurt. | ||
| It wasn't all at one time, but I was always more so the biggest person in my class, especially through the younger years. | ||
| Once I got to high school, I was probably six foot six one my freshman year. | ||
| And then each year I jumped up three or four inches and then I got to seven foot Who were your heroes, basketball heroes growing up? | ||
| Who were the guys that you were like, oh man, I want to do that. | ||
| I want to model it after that. | ||
| You know, I loved KD. | ||
| Great player still, but it's different now being able to play against him. | ||
| But yeah, I love the fact that he was such a big player, but was a guard pretty much. | ||
| And so him, Dirk, PG, guys that I watch all the time. | ||
| And I think I watched KD before every high school game, before every college game. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And tell me about that moment. | ||
| You get the, you're at draft night and they say your name and your life changes. | ||
| Just like that. | ||
| Yeah, it was, it was awesome. | ||
| But for me, it was, it was, it was weird because everybody else around me seemed like they knew what was going on. | ||
| Like they were ready for the moment. | ||
| They had, you know, what they were going to do afterwards. | ||
| They're going to go party. | ||
| They were going to go celebrate with their families. | ||
| Like everyone took it in stride. | ||
| But for me, it was like, like, like, I don't know what to do. | ||
| So I kind of just, after I got drafted, I walked to a pizza shop down the street. | ||
| It was in New York with Coach Gates, who's a big part of my life and one of my agent's assistants. | ||
| And we got a pizza and I went back to the hotel room and sent my family home on an Uber and then went in my rooms. | ||
| It was kind of just like, it was weird. | ||
| I didn't know, you know, it just all went by so fast as well. | ||
| And it must have been pretty sweet for you, as you said, you played ball in Florida, then to be drafted by Orlando, you get to keep it in Florida, and you seem to have a great connection with the state. | ||
| Yeah, I love the state of Florida, and I've come to appreciate it more and more, especially as the world has gotten crazier and crazier. | ||
| So, you know, I'm a fan of DeSantis and what he's been able to do, but yeah, I love Florida. | ||
| I'm glad that I'm here. | ||
| I feel like it's a God-earned thing for me to be here from middle school till now, and I love the state. | ||
| All right, so let's pick it up right there, because you mentioned DeSantis and the Florida situation, and what put you on my radar was, it's got to be almost two years ago now, pretty early on into the pandemic, NBA was one of the first leagues that just completely shut down out of nowhere. | ||
| In some ways, it was the first big thing that did it that then led to so many other institutions closing down. | ||
| You were one of the first guys out there that was like, hey, can we slow down with some of this? | ||
| Or maybe I don't wanna be necessarily injected with this thing, or I'm gonna make some choices for myself, et cetera, et cetera. | ||
| So first, could you just talk a little bit about what it was like when you were hearing that things were gonna change and that the league was shutting down before it got, because it all didn't happen at once. | ||
| The vaccine stuff started happening a little bit later than that. | ||
| So I think what happened at first was everybody was just so afraid. | ||
| Like, right, we were getting those photos from China and some videos and stuff like that. | ||
| It was like, this thing is coming to America. | ||
| You know, when is it going to pop up? | ||
| There were cases. | ||
| And then you hear that a player in the NBA has it and, you know, had spread it to his teammates. | ||
| And so because of the way that it was, it was portrayed in the media, it was just such a fearful time. | ||
| I feel like everybody was walking on eggshells, thinking about when they were going to get it. | ||
| And so once the NBA had shut down, we had time to kind of just, you know, I think we went on a quarantine, really. | ||
| I think right around that time, Um, at least Florida had like a curfew. | ||
| It wasn't a complete, um, you know, lockdown, but we had a curfew that you had to be in your house and it was just a weird time. | ||
| But, um, you know, social media wasn't a big help because of all the things that were spreading and going around. | ||
| And so I just tried my best to try to take a step back and just watch everything. | ||
| Um, there was, there was an early. | ||
| Hesitation with me because of the way that things were being portrayed. | ||
| Um, it seemed like everything was so forced and, and, and, and, and made to be fearful for everyone to kind of be running around like chickens with their head cuts off. | ||
| So. | ||
| I kind of just took a step back and said, let me watch. | ||
| And then we get to the bubble. | ||
| And then after that we get to, okay, now there's a vaccine on the scene. | ||
| And that's, that's the, that's a, that's how we get a little later. | ||
| Right, so all right, let's talk about the bubble situation, because I think people, or people that don't pay attention to the NBA that are watching this don't even know what that is. | ||
| But they basically had you guys in your own sort of lockdown, so that the season could kind of somewhat continue, and sometimes you'd have masks on the bench, but then you'd take them off to play, so now you're sweating on each other, and spitting on each other, and probably bleeding on each other, but then when you sit down, you're wearing a mask. | ||
| I mean, none of it really made sense. | ||
| Did coaches and players talk about kind of the craziness of the whole thing? | ||
| Yeah, we definitely did. | ||
| And I think, especially early on, like when we were first getting into the bubble, everyone still, the world is so afraid. | ||
| So the NBA and all these different organizations are trying to do all that they can to kind of like, OK, we need to focus on this and tackle this. | ||
| But at the same time, we need guys to play. | ||
| So what can we do? | ||
| OK, they wear the mask on the bench and they go into the game and take it off. | ||
| But it was it was such hysteria and just things weren't making sense. | ||
| And so we definitely had conversations about, you know, needing to test every day and, and the mask thing, you know, early on, um, before the league got shut down, you know, the, the, the team had brought a doctor in, um, to talk to everybody, you know, tell everybody, okay, this is, this is happening a little bit about it. | ||
| And one of the first things he said was masks do absolutely nothing. | ||
| And he, he was like, I'm just letting you guys know that, um, apparently the way he phrased it was like, I guess the COVID particles were so small. | ||
| That they could pass through, you know, pretty much most masks, especially cloth masks. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So that that was our first thing. | ||
| So when he first said that, I was like, OK, I'm not I'm not wearing a mask. | ||
| And then you have these mask mandates and things like that. | ||
| I'm like, what is going on? | ||
| And so. | ||
| So, yeah, it was pretty crazy in the bubble. | ||
| A lot of things didn't make sense, but we kind of just went along with it because we wanted to play. | ||
| Were you surprised the way some guys just kind of took the orders even though they thought it didn't work or the fact that you guys are mostly in your mid-twenties at the peak of physical health like your cardiovascular is better than basically anyone on the planet you all eat right etc etc yet everybody started doing all this crazy stuff? | ||
| I wouldn't say I was surprised. | ||
| I mean, societal pressure is tough. | ||
| I mean, it works. | ||
| And especially when you have, you know, people that are higher up or just people around you who are who kind of adopt this mainstream, you know, idea or ideology and kind of just run with it. | ||
| So I don't think I was surprised. | ||
| Even myself early on, I was like, OK, this is what we have to do. | ||
| It wasn't until things got later on and we get out the bubble and then the vaccine starts coming around and then I can just see The, you know, just how much was being pushed and you have all the people on social media, you know, demeaning everyone and all this stuff. | ||
| And then, you know, the thing about the Rolling Stone article happens to me. | ||
| And that's when I'm like, OK, this thing is really not just about a vaccine. | ||
| It's political. | ||
| There's an agenda. | ||
| There's a bias to it. | ||
| And, but I know I wouldn't surprise that everybody kind of went along with it. | ||
| All right, so let's get to that part in just a sec, but I just want to do a little more on the bubble. | ||
| So again, for people that don't know, so they basically had you guys, were you all pretty much in one hotel and had to limit who was coming in and out? | ||
| Like they really, the idea was that you weren't going to basically see anybody else, you know, wives, kids, et cetera, and that you would play against each other and that was it. | ||
| But I've heard from some other players, that's not exactly how the thing worked. | ||
| Well, it was, it was three hotels. | ||
| And so you had teams split up in these three hotels and pretty much the order was like, you're not allowed to leave once you come in. | ||
| That's it. | ||
| As the bubble kind of went on and we got to the playoffs, I think they allowed some people's families to come in or just their wives or something like that. | ||
| But early on, it was like strict. | ||
| We test every day. | ||
| I think we were testing like twice a day. | ||
| I'm not even completely sure, but you're testing every day. | ||
| You know, they had a lounge set up. | ||
| They had a barbershop for us. | ||
| So they tried to kind of, you know, help it, you know, be worthwhile. | ||
| But it was just, it was just tough to kind of just be in the hotel room all the time. | ||
| But yeah, no, nothing in, nothing out, food all there. | ||
| So it was really like a, like a jail lookie. | ||
| I mean, I heard some rumors that people were coming and going and able to get some lady friends inside, et cetera. | ||
| And some people got in trouble. | ||
| You know, some people who got caught. | ||
| I don't know about, I didn't hear anything about guys actually being successful with that, but I did hear the story about one guy trying and getting in trouble. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So, okay. | ||
| So then the bubble passes and now things start shifting towards the vaccine. | ||
| And that's where that video of you, what month, do you remember what month that was? | ||
| No, not at all. | ||
| Alright, so it's about a year and a half ago. | ||
| I mean, it was at the height of the whole thing. | ||
| And basically, you gave a spectacular, you know, we'll lay it in right here. | ||
| We're gonna lay in the speech right here so people can listen to it. | ||
| It is my belief that the vaccine status of every person should be their own choice and completely up to them without the Without bullying, without being pressured, or without being forced into doing so, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm uncomfortable with taking the vaccine at this time. | ||
| I think that we're all different. | ||
| We all come from different places. | ||
| We've all had different experiences and hold dear to different beliefs. | ||
| And what it is that you do with your body when it comes to putting medicine in there should be your choice, free of the ridicule and the opinion of others. | ||
| I've had COVID. | ||
| In the past, and so our understanding of antibodies of natural immunity has changed a great deal from the onset of the pandemic and is still evolving. | ||
| I understand that the vaccine would help if you catch COVID and you'll be able to have less symptoms from contracting it. | ||
| but with me having covid in the past and having antibodies with my current age | ||
| group and fitness, physical fitness level. Um, it's not necessarily a fear | ||
| of mine. Uh, taking the vaccine. Um, like I said, it would decrease my | ||
| chances of having a severe reaction, but it does open me up to the albeit | ||
| rare chance, but the possibility of having an adverse reaction to the | ||
| the vaccine itself. I don't believe that being unvaccinated means infected or being vaccinated | ||
| means uninfected. You can still catch COVID with or without having the vaccine. I would | ||
| say honestly the craziness of it all in terms of not being able to say that it should be | ||
| everybody's fair choice without being demeaned or talked crazy to doesn't make one comfortable | ||
| to do what said person is telling them to do. | ||
| Yeah, I would say that's a couple of the reasons that, you know, I would say I'm hesitant at this time, but at the end of the day, I don't feel that it is, you know, anyone's reason to come out and say, well, this is why or this is not why. | ||
| It should just be their decision and, you know, loving your neighbors, not just loving those that agree with you or look like you or move in the same way that you do. | ||
| It's, you know, loving those who don't. | ||
| So that right there, I mean, you laid out more common sense decency and thoughtful analysis than pretty much anything I saw on CNN. | ||
| And that's where I was like, man, I gotta talk to this guy. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, so again, like early on, like me just trying to take a step back and just see everything that was going on. | ||
| I was like, okay, they're saying that the virus has a 99.97 survival rate. | ||
| I'm young, people who are older and have comorbidities or obese are really struggling with this thing. | ||
| I just said, you know, as I saw how much the vaccine was being pushed and forced on everybody, and then you see, you know, social media and people, you know, calling people crazy for not wanting to take it, or even just being hesitant or asking questions. | ||
| And then you have people's medical and religious exemptions being denied and people losing their jobs. | ||
| I was like, man, this is insane. | ||
| This isn't right. | ||
| And so I just said, you know what, I'm young, I'm healthy. | ||
| I don't have any, you know, side effects or anything like that. | ||
| I don't see the wisdom in putting something into my body that's not going to stop me from Getting the virus or transmitting it to someone else. | ||
| That's just where I'm at and I'm not going to do it. | ||
| And, you know, at the same time, I want it to be, you know, a hope and a voice for other people who are going through this who didn't have a platform. | ||
| Was that just a normal postgame press conference? | ||
| Were you planning on doing that or how did that even happen? | ||
| Were you thinking about, hey, I got to say something? | ||
| No, it was actually perfect because the Rolling Stone article. | ||
| So if around that time, The team calls me and they say, Hey, you know, the Rolling Stone wants to do an interview with you, you know, about everything that's going on. | ||
| I'm saying, cool. | ||
| So, uh, I get on the phone with him and he's like, you know, you're unvaccinated. | ||
| And I'm thinking to myself, like, how do you even know that I'm unvaccinated? | ||
| Welcome to the mainstream media, my friend. | ||
| But, but yeah, it was actually a great conversation. | ||
| Like we're talking and like, he's like, Oh, you know what? | ||
| I, I agree with you on that and all, that's a good point. | ||
| And I pretty much laid out to him exactly what I went on to say. | ||
| The next day. | ||
| And so, but the article drops that night, like the Sunday night, and it says Jonathan Issa came to his, you know, vaccination status, whatever, by watching Donald Trump press conferences and studying black history. | ||
| And that's what I'm like, oh my gosh. | ||
| And everybody's on social media calling me crazy. | ||
| And I sound, I sound stupid in the article. | ||
| But the next day was media day. | ||
| So Monday is media day and I was expecting the question. | ||
| I was on the phone with my pastor that night and he was like, well, you have an opportunity to talk about it tomorrow at media day. | ||
| I have to ask you about it. | ||
| And I just kind of tried to lay it out there. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So that was your first time being hit by the media like that, huh? | ||
| Welcome to the party. | ||
| Well, it was my first, not being hit by the media, because then you have the whole standing in the bubble thing. | ||
| That was before that. | ||
| That was in June of 2020. | ||
| But it was the first time. | ||
| Oh, right. | ||
| So, yeah, wait, let's back up. | ||
| Tell people about that first. | ||
|
unidentified
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Right. | |
| We skipped over something big. | ||
| Well, so around the time of what happened to George Floyd, as tragic and as wrong as it was, there was a lot of pressure on NBA players going into the bubble. | ||
| Um, to, to have to kneel for the national anthem and to wear the black lives matter t-shirt. | ||
| But again, same thing with the vaccine. | ||
| I tried to step back and say, okay, what, what is the right way for me to respond in this moment that I feel would bring real change? | ||
| Um, and for some people in that moment, it was kneeling and wearing the t-shirt, but for me it wasn't. | ||
| And so I just looked at, I looked at my life and said, you know what, my life has been supported and changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. | ||
| And I can't, I don't see a greater message or a greater. | ||
| antidote or hope for the times that we see ourselves in, racism, and not even that, just all the things that plague the hearts of men that I know that the gospel can change, I wanted to stand up and give that message. | ||
| I didn't want to go with anybody's narrative or, you know, the whole, you know, as crazy as the whole Black Lives Matter movement was, I didn't want to, you know, kind of just fall into it. | ||
| And so I decided to be the only one to stand and to share that message of, you know, loving your neighbor, you know, the way that you want to be loved. | ||
| Did the team know what you were going to do on that day when you decided to stand and everybody else kneeled? | ||
| So there's a lot of details in the book that I explained. | ||
| I called somebody that was in the magic organization the night before because I didn't want to catch them off guard. | ||
| So I called them and we had a whole team meeting the day before. | ||
| So we had a team meeting and the executives of the team came in and said, you know what? | ||
| We support you guys on whatever you decide to do. | ||
| A team had already knelt earlier that day. | ||
| And so they were like, you were going to give you guys time to just talk about it as a team. | ||
| So they walked out and the guys are just like, yo, we don't have a choice. | ||
| This is what we have to do. | ||
| We have to kneel. | ||
| We can't be the only team that doesn't. | ||
| And then one of my teammates looked at me and they said, Jonathan, what are you going to do? | ||
| They kind of knew. | ||
| I don't know why. | ||
| But he's like, what are you going to do? | ||
| I said, fellas, I'm not going to wear that T-shirt and I'm not going to kneel for the National Anthem. | ||
| And then I called somebody in the Magic organization that night and kind of let them know. | ||
| And they just said, OK, we'll handle it tomorrow. | ||
| Were you, in retrospect, I mean, were you thinking, man, This could cause all kinds of problems. | ||
| You know, I mean, look what's going on with Enos Cantor right now. | ||
| The guy's in the prime of his career. | ||
| He can't get a contract. | ||
| I mean, that it just creates headaches that even if you have all the skills and everything else, the teams are just like, I don't want to deal with the headache. | ||
| Everyone else is going along and that's the type of people we want with us. | ||
| Look, the night before I stood, I was on the phone with my pastor and I was letting him know. | ||
| I was like, yo, I don't think you understand how big this is going to be. | ||
| Like, you know, people are getting canceled. | ||
| I didn't sign my contract yet. | ||
| Um, I didn't sign my contract extension, so there was the possibility of me getting canceled. | ||
| Then I wouldn't have the contract that I have right now. | ||
| Um, but yeah, I knew the backlash that was going to come. | ||
| I knew, you know, the coon and the uncle Tom, I know the, you know, the people who would automatically take it in and make it about the flag and the national anthem and all that stuff. | ||
| I knew all that stuff was going to come, but at the same time, you know, the one thing that my pastor said to me is you cannot stand for God and God not stand for you. | ||
| And so I knew what I was standing for. | ||
| I wasn't standing for a movement. | ||
| I wasn't standing for a sign. | ||
| I was standing to offer that message that we all fall short of God's glory, every single one of us. | ||
| And with anyone to throw stones, you're throwing stones from a glass house. | ||
| And so what I try my best to do is just kind of, you know, come from a humble position and say, man, if we could love each other the way that God loves us, which is in spite of our sin, in spite of our faults, then we could really change the world. | ||
| What about some of your teammates? | ||
| It sounds like maybe some of them kind of wanted to do the same, but felt the pressure and just couldn't couldn't bear it. | ||
| Well, at the time, I didn't know that. | ||
| And I wouldn't even say my teammates per se, but I had conversations with other guys, you know, around the league and even in other sports. | ||
| So after I had left the bubble, I hurt myself the next game. | ||
| I tore my ACL the next game. | ||
| And I got a call from a soccer player here in Orlando. | ||
| And he was like, hey, you know, I saw what you did. | ||
| I want to do the same thing, but I'm terrified. | ||
| And this is this is a white guy, so he's he's extra terrified. | ||
| And so, you know, I was able to talk, you know, talk him through it and encourage him to stand up for what he believes in. | ||
| But, you know, it was a very emotional moment. | ||
| And so I was expecting, you know, guys on my team to disagree with me. | ||
| I was even expecting it to get heated. | ||
| And so, you know, details in the book, there's a there's a team meeting that happens the day after I stood. | ||
| And it's a heated conversation between me and the guys. | ||
| But it pretty much ends with, look, you guys knelt for what you believed in. | ||
| And I stood for what I believed in. | ||
| It wasn't a protest for you guys to protest. | ||
| It was just because I see the same things that you guys see, but I don't believe that, you know, | ||
| the Black Lives Matter organization or kneeling for the national anthem | ||
| or wearing a t-shirt is the answer. | ||
| What's your take on just sort of how generally sports has become so politicized? | ||
| I mentioned to you when I saw you in Orlando that as a big, I grew up the biggest NBA fan you can ever imagine. | ||
| I mean, basketball, I love basketball as much as you love basketball, but I don't really watch anymore. | ||
| I just don't watch because it became so politicized. | ||
| Every time I turn on an NBA game, all they're doing is talking about basketball, talking about, I wish they were talking about basketball. | ||
| They're talking about politics, or they got the BLM logo out, or they're analyzing some race event. | ||
| And I'm just like, man, I can't take it anymore. | ||
| Are the players talking about that too? | ||
| Is there some level of frustration that you guys aren't just focused on basketball? | ||
| No, I haven't had that conversation with any players. | ||
| And I know that it's something that, you know, a large part of America has felt. | ||
| And I think it's just unfortunate. | ||
| I think things like, you know, organizations like the NBA or anything that's in the entertainment phrase, it only benefits them to be Um, to be in the middle ground. | ||
| Um, but I think because of, because of, you know, maybe one group or one side being able to, to, to, to frame the argument, um, and make it a moral argument on a lot of the things that are happening, take the vaccine, take BLM to where if you disagree, you're an evil person. | ||
| And so it's easy for them to kind of take that moral high ground and say, this is the only way, this is the right way to handle something. | ||
| But, um, again, I think it would be in the best interest of the NBA or any organization to just say. | ||
| You know, this, this, we should be in the middle and we should allow people to, you know, to watch us and enjoy. | ||
| And if an individual player wants to use their platform to speak on something, I think that they should have the absolute right to like, like I'm doing right now. | ||
| So if anybody in league wants to stand up and say that that was wrong or use their individual platform, that's great. | ||
| But I think the, I think the NBA should try their best to kind of, you know, be in the middle. | ||
| I agree. | ||
| So, alright, so you stand for the National Anthem, then you give this incredible talk at the postgame on Media Day about the VACs. | ||
| You get some strange media reaction. | ||
| Were you kind of surprised where you were welcomed and where you were kind of shunned after that? | ||
| No, I wouldn't say that I was surprised. | ||
| I definitely, you know, because, you know, it was during the National Anthem, so there's There's a side of the aisle that is going to embrace that and even the overwhelming support of Christians and everybody that agree with me on that front. | ||
| So I wasn't surprised at all about the calls that I got and the different media personalities that wanted to talk to me afterwards. | ||
| I would say the only thing that I maybe was surprised of was that maybe nobody on the other side wanted to even have a conversation. | ||
| And I think just in the way that I kind of phrased my argument or the way I went about it, I would have made more people to say, you know what? | ||
| Well, let's just talk about it. | ||
| You know, I wasn't somebody that was saying, you know, you guys are wrong and this is terrible. | ||
| And I didn't come from that standpoint. | ||
| And so I would have definitely been open to having more conversations with the other side. | ||
| But, you know, I went where I was welcome and I just tried my best to continue to push that Christ first message and go from there. | ||
| So let's talk about the faith part of this, because obviously you've mentioned your faith a few times. | ||
| It's clearly a key part of your life. | ||
| Were you always a believer? | ||
| Did your family come from a deep religious background? | ||
| So I wasn't always a believer, but we grew up in church when we were young, like all the time. | ||
| We were always in church. | ||
| But then I moved from Bronx, New York, to Naples, Florida, and my parents split up. | ||
| And my dad was like my hero, but he was really like the spiritual foundation of our family. | ||
| Um, and so I went from a predominantly black neighborhood to a predominantly white neighborhood, and I really, really struggled with fitting in. | ||
| And so I tell in the book, a couple of early instances about just how terrible that was and getting the other kids to like me. | ||
| And early on, I developed the nickname Ethiopia, uh, because I was so skinny and then obviously dark skin. | ||
| And so, um, I, it was the first time that I became really self-conscious, like in the New York, every, everybody was the same. | ||
| It was, it was fun. | ||
| But once I got to Naples, I was like, I always tried so hard to fit in and to kind of work for the love of my peers that I started to develop anxiety. | ||
| I started to develop fear. | ||
| And then I found basketball and I was able to kind of put everything into basketball. | ||
| And that brought me the people, the girls that wanted to be around me, the guys that wanted to be around me. | ||
| I started to make those friends and those peers, but I still struggle with those things in the background. | ||
| And so I get to Florida state, I'm the number one player in the state of Florida. | ||
| Everybody's expecting me to be this great player that takes them to the championship, but I'm still struggling with these things behind the scenes. | ||
| And so I had anxiety attacks while I'm on campus and I passed out in class and all these different things and everybody's like, what is going on with you? | ||
| And so but for me, and it really is a wild story in the book, I get to the NBA, I'm living my life, I'm doing my thing, and then I get injured and I'm at my apartment and I get on the elevator and a guy stops me and he says, I can tell you how to be great. | ||
| And I said, tell me how to be great. | ||
| I'm Jonathan Isaac. | ||
| What do you mean? | ||
| He's like, you got to know Jesus. | ||
| And I'm like, Jesus, man. | ||
| Like, you know, I grew up Christian and all that stuff. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| But from that point on, like, my life really does get flipped upside down. | ||
| And it really is a story of just like God revealing himself to me and like these crazy coincidences. | ||
| And ultimately, I was able to take a step back and say, like, God loves me for me. | ||
| He loves me in spite of my right and my wrong, and I don't have to work for his love. | ||
| And that was the first time developing that relationship with Christ where I was able to breathe and kind of just let my shoulders sink. | ||
| Like, I don't have to work for his love. | ||
| And I've kind of just gone down that path of developing a relationship with him. | ||
| And here in Orlando, my home church, Jump Ministries Global Church. | ||
| And the story really does bring to life all those details and those intricate details. | ||
| I don't want to give too much away because I want people to go grab the book. | ||
| We're going to link to the book right down below. | ||
| Don't worry about that. | ||
| How has your faith been challenged by the injury? | ||
| Because it's sort of the nightmare of a professional athlete. | ||
| You blow out the knee, you blow out the Achilles, etc, etc. | ||
| I mean, you're going through that right now. | ||
| It's been two full seasons. | ||
| Yeah, it's been tough. | ||
| And it was really tough early on, but I'm so grateful that I have. | ||
| I just feel like I have the right people around me, like my pastor, Dr. Duron Hepburn. | ||
| He's like the angel of the book. | ||
| He's a star in the book and me coming to faith. | ||
| He's actually the one that stopped me in the elevator and said that to me. | ||
| He's big. | ||
| I mean, my wife is big, my church family. | ||
| But it was definitely tough, like, you know, asking God, like, why do you why did you allow that to happen? | ||
| Like, what's the cause? | ||
| But now that I'm able to kind of take a step back and see that this book is tangible and it's alive and people are reading it and saying how inspired and encouraged they are, there wouldn't be a book if I didn't get injured. | ||
| I wouldn't have had time to do it. | ||
| I wouldn't have, there wouldn't have been really no inspiration to do it outside of just, you know, wanting to write a story about standing in the bubble. | ||
| But the book is so much more than that. | ||
| The book is really a journey about my life, you know, overcoming fear and anxiety and how a relationship with Christ helped me to do that. | ||
| And so, um, it really is just pointing people to what is, what I believe is truly going to change the world, which is the love of Christ. | ||
| And so I feel that it was necessary for me to be able to write this book. | ||
| How does the faith part play into just even being in rehab and going through the pain, going through the surgery, all that stuff? | ||
| I mean, I told you, my doc wants me to have the surgery. | ||
| Obviously I'm not an NBA player, but I've been prolonging this thing and I don't really want to do it. | ||
| And I got PRP in my knee and it's feeling pretty good. | ||
| But just the process, because how long are you just laid out when you have the ACL surgery? | ||
| Just fully in bed? | ||
| It was a while. | ||
| I think for me, it was a little more complicated than just the ACL. | ||
| And so I was in bed for at least two months and then non-weight-bearing, non-weight-bearing after that for another month or so. | ||
| So, yeah, but I think for me, the recovery is just like, the faith thing helps me because I know that there's a purpose behind it. | ||
| And so what I've learned through getting injured and being able to write this book is like, ultimately, what happens, good or bad, God does have a purpose for it. | ||
| And there's a verse in the Bible that says, All things work together for the good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose. | ||
| So all I have to worry about is... | ||
| Loving God and aiming to please him with my life. | ||
| And he's going to make sure that all the good and the bad work towards my good. | ||
| And so I see that with this book. | ||
| I see that, you know, the people leaving the reviews and inspiring them. | ||
| And I got a message yesterday about a guy saying, you know what, I'm really going to pursue this faith thing and figure out, you know, what a relationship with Jesus Christ is because your book. | ||
| And so I'm like, man, OK, I can see the purpose in it. | ||
| And so with going through rehab with, you know, the day in, day out monotonous work that does get tiring and gruesome, I'm like, Man, there's a purpose behind all of this, and I just can't wait to get back onto the court. | ||
| How do you live a life that's pretty, from what I could tell, pretty straight-laced? | ||
| And I did meet your girlfriend, who's fantastic. | ||
| Compared to what we think of, say, the average NBA player out there partying all night, going to strip clubs, blah, blah, blah. | ||
| How do you kind of grapple those two things, like figure out who your crew is and all that kind of thing? | ||
| Well, I mean, I guess I just try to live my life authentically. | ||
| I've experienced that. | ||
| I'm not one to say I wasn't the one that was going to the clubs and drinking and doing the stuff I was. | ||
| And I got to experience and I got to figure out that it's empty, man. | ||
| It's not something that can sustain you. | ||
| It's something that's pleasurable for the moment. | ||
| And then you wake up and your head is hurting and you got to deal with everything that happened the night before. | ||
| And so there's a verse that says, Jesus came that we may have life and have life more abundantly. | ||
| When I was doing all those things and living that early NBA life, I really thought that I was living and I really thought that I had the life that everybody wanted. | ||
| But what I've been able to experience in the last four years and developing a relationship with Christ is like, I wasn't even close to living and being able to do what I do now, write a book and just see, you know, my life kind of expand and I'm married now, all those different things. | ||
| It's like, man, like it really is the truth. | ||
| And so, um, I just try to live my, live my life. | ||
| And at the same time, I have the right people around me. | ||
| I have accountability. | ||
| That helps keep me strong and structured and I just kind of keep my head down and just, you know, keep moving forward. | ||
| What do you want to do when the NBA thing wraps up? | ||
| I sense something here. | ||
| Yeah, listen, everybody kind of, you know, and I won't say everybody, but a lot of people say, you know, you need to go on and become a pastor, all these different things, but I'm always hesitant to, To even affirm that just because I see firsthand how difficult it is and how high of a calling it is to kind of shepherd people through life. | ||
| But I mean, I wouldn't say no, but I think right now I'm just trying to figure out More and more what God's plan for my life. | ||
| I'm working on a second book. | ||
| The Why I Stand book is being talked about turning into a movie. | ||
| And so there's just a lot going on and I'm excited. | ||
| I just want to continue to be a beacon of hope for people who have struggled with anxiety and depression and fear and let them know that there is hope in a relationship with Christ. | ||
| People who struggle with suicide and just continue to move forward. | ||
| I want to help the world be a better place. | ||
| And I think the message of Jesus Christ is how we do that. | ||
| And that's just where I'm at. | ||
| By the way, we should mention, so Daily Wire, which you mentioned before, they are the publishers of the book. | ||
| Is the movie going through Daily Wire, too? | ||
| Are you allowed to say? | ||
| Yeah, yes. | ||
| So they're going to be a part of bringing the movie to life. | ||
| We're just still bringing it out to other entities. | ||
| So we're figuring it out, but I think it's going to be something that's really inspiring, really dope, and something that a family can sit down and watch and be inspired by. | ||
| I think people got most of your message, but is there any last message I can offer them or that you can offer them? | ||
| Go to Amazon right now. | ||
| I got the book right here just so you guys can see it. | ||
| But yeah, go to Amazon, grab it. | ||
| Again, the book is so much more than just about standing for the bubble and standing in the bubble and refusing a vaccine. | ||
| It really is a story about my journey and how I got to those moments in the first place. | ||
| I believe it to be encouraging and inspiring. | ||
| And even if you're not a Christian, read the book and you may walk away one. | ||
| But yeah, so I just want to encourage people to go ahead and grab it. | ||
| It's doing great on Amazon. | ||
| We're going to find out tomorrow or Thursday if we made the New York Times bestsellers list or not. | ||
| So we're praying that we did, but it's just an exciting time. | ||
| And I, again, just encourage people to go grab it. | ||
| I hate to tell you, my friend, as an old, grizzled veteran of books, they should have put me at number two. | ||
| They didn't put me on at all. | ||
| The stats are not as honest as basketball stats when it comes to the New York Times. | ||
| I've definitely heard that. | ||
| My hands are up. | ||
| If it happens, it happens. | ||
| If it doesn't, it doesn't. | ||
| I'm excited either way about the turnout and what everybody is saying about the book. | ||
| New York Times, basically, you could have 36, 12, and 8, and they'll say you had 12, 4, and 2. | ||
| That's how it works. | ||
| I got you. | ||
| I understand. | ||
| Jonathan, you're awesome, man. | ||
| I hope to see you soon. | ||
| And I told you, I got a pretty sweet court down here in Miami. | ||
| So in that, and he's feeling good. | ||
| I think, here's my prediction. | ||
| We're going to play horse at some point. | ||
| I think I can get, I think I can get an S on you. | ||
| I think I can get it as far to an S. I can still shoot. | ||
| I can still shoot. | ||
| Oh wow, an S? | ||
| Okay, we definitely gotta figure this thing out, so when we play Miami next season, we'll figure it out. | ||
| All right, we're gonna make it happen. | ||
| It was great seeing you, man. | ||
| The link to the book is right down below, and I expect great things out of you, my friend. | ||
| If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics instead of nonstop yelling, check out our politics playlist. | ||
| And if you want to watch full interviews on a variety of topics, watch our full episode playlist all right over here. |
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