{"id":29696,"date":"2014-04-01T01:42:06","date_gmt":"2014-04-01T06:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=29696"},"modified":"2014-04-08T15:16:40","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T20:16:40","slug":"nba-strikes-deal-with-lds-church-for-jabari-parker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2014\/04\/nba-strikes-deal-with-lds-church-for-jabari-parker\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA strikes deal with LDS Church for Jabari Parker"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jabari<\/a>
Jabari Parker<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today the NBA announced a landmark agreement with the LDS Church to ensure that Jabari Parker’s desire to serve a mission does not interfere with his draft prospects, saying the church has agreed to their proposal to call Parker to serve as a missionary in the city of the NBA team that drafts him.\u00a0 While the\u00a0official statement<\/a>\u00a0is brief, sources close to the negotiations report that because the NBA considers Parker to be a certain star, league officials, including new commissioner Adam Silver, went to unprecedented lengths to ensure that Parker enters this year’s draft.<\/p>\n

The deal stipulates that Elder Parker will proselyte and live with missionary companions, like other volunteer Mormon missionares, except that, since Elder Parker will be an NBA player, he and his companion will attend all of the team’s practices and games.\u00a0 The NBA has even given permission for Elder Parker\u2019s companion to sit on the team bench in missionary attire during games to comply with mission rules, and has guaranteed that the companion will be shown at least twice during every televised game.\u00a0 The league also made other concessions to secure the church’s cooperation, including donating a box suite for the local mission to use for entertaining investigators.<\/p>\n

Joe Dumars, President of Basketball Operations for the Detroit Pistons, is excited about the proposal, saying it raises Parker\u2019s draft prospects even higher, \u201cThere\u2019s not a GM in the league who wouldn\u2019t like having two clean-cut Mormon missionaries traveling with their team to reduce late-night carousing, and motivating the team in the locker room with heartfelt prayers.\u00a0 Can you imagine how long me, Isaiah, Laimbeer and Rodman could have stayed at the top if we’d been surrounded by that kind of spiritual stature?\u201d<\/p>\n

Church spokeswoman LaDawn McConkie says the church expects Parker\u2019s mission president will be flooded with requests from missionaries asking to be Parker\u2019s companion, but it\u2019s all part of a president’s demanding job.\u00a0 According to ESPN, the mission presidents in the cities with teams most likely to win the draft lottery are already making plans.\u00a0 Keith Harris, president of the church\u2019s Wisconsin Milwaukee Mission, told ESPN’s Ric Bucher that he\u2019s asked his missionaries to fast this Sunday to ensure Parker becomes a Milwaukee Buck.\u00a0 \u201cEver since the Bucks started setting NBA loss records I had a feeling their abysmal season was all part of a higher purpose, so with this announcement I\u2019m not about to sit back and watch the missions in Orlando or Philadelphia win Parker because we\u2019re not worthy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Denver Nuggets owner Stan Kroenke praised Silver’s foresight, “The commissioner really pulled out all the stops.\u00a0 Just announcing the\u00a0NBA\u00a0Free Book of Mormon Night<\/em>\u00a0is certain to cement fan loyalty. Our season ticket holders love basketball, beer, and half-time entertainment, but when they hear they’ll get a free Book of Mormon, too?\u00a0 We’re already discussing internally what to do with all the extra money.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today the NBA announced a landmark agreement with the LDS Church to ensure that Jabari Parker’s desire to serve a mission does not interfere with his draft prospects, saying the church has agreed to their proposal to call Parker to serve as a missionary in the city of the NBA team that drafts him.\u00a0 While the\u00a0official statement\u00a0is brief, sources close to the negotiations report that because the NBA considers Parker to be a certain star, league officials, including new commissioner Adam Silver, went to unprecedented lengths to ensure that Parker enters this year’s draft. The deal stipulates that Elder Parker will proselyte and live with missionary companions, like other volunteer Mormon missionares, except that, since Elder Parker will be an NBA player, he and his companion will attend all of the team’s practices and games.\u00a0 The NBA has even given permission for Elder Parker\u2019s companion to sit on the team bench in missionary attire during games to comply with mission rules, and has guaranteed that the companion will be shown at least twice during every televised game.\u00a0 The league also made other concessions to secure the church’s cooperation, including donating a box suite for the local mission to use for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/Jabari-Parker.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29696"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29708,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29696\/revisions\/29708"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}