The Value Test: What a Job Loss Taught an NBA Chaplain About Identity

Damon Gunn had given the message many times. In locker rooms and chapel gatherings, he had told professional basketball players that their identity is not their contract, their stats, or whether they start or come off the bench. Then, one June, he was laid off from the school job he had held for seven years. He spent the next eight months without a paycheck, and the message stopped being theory.

The Message He Had to Live

Damon is in his 22nd year as an NBA chaplain: 13 seasons with the Minnesota Timberwolves, and now his ninth with the Houston Rockets. For more than two decades, his job has been to care for people whose worth the world measures nightly in numbers.

Then he found himself on the other side of the lesson. “One night I told the guys, ‘I’m always telling you your value isn’t based on performance, but I’m having to go through it right now,’” he recalls. “God kept reminding me that my value wasn’t diminishing just because I wasn’t bringing home a paycheck.”

“There are times it doesn’t feel like it. But He’s saying, just continue to trust Me. Our value does not diminish based on our salary or our job title.”

He held on to Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans 8:28, scriptures that anchor purpose in what God will do, not in where we stand today. At the Rockets’ home opener chapel, he took the team back through the same truth. It carried more weight because he had just walked through it himself.

A Calling Built on Others Pouring In

Damon grew up in Madison and later built his career in Minneapolis, leading district-wide parent and community engagement for the school district. He moved to Houston nine years ago. His instinct to serve goes back to high school, where his mentoring and community service hours earned him a college scholarship, even though it was not his grades that won it.

He doesn't tell that story as a personal achievement. “I’ve never accomplished anything on my own,” he says. “It took a lot of others pouring into me.” Parents who did well by him, and other adults who gave their time to young people, shaped the leader he became. That conviction still drives his work: it takes everyone working together for kids to thrive, and for adults to thrive too.

Serving the Neighbors God Brought Here

Since June, Damon has served as development director at Prestige Learning Institute in Houston. He oversees church partnerships, volunteers, marketing, social media, and fundraising for an organization serving refugee and immigrant families, primarily from the Greater Middle East, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

The scope is significant. About 220 adults attend ESL classes each week, with sessions five days a week and sometimes three a day. While parents learn English, children from three months to five years old receive early childhood education that prepares them for kindergarten. The institute also runs a weekly men's group, a women's group every other week, and a weekly program for teen girls. An after-school program begins in January. In total, more than 400 men, women, and children come through the doors every week.

The location is intentional. Five schools sit within a two-block radius of the building. “We’re right in the heart of the community,” Damon says. “We’re helping with educational needs, but also eternal and emotional needs.”

He is taking a Kairos course on global Church work, and one idea from it stays with him. Many nations are closed to traditional Church work right now, yet God has brought people from those same nations to Houston's backyard. “Do we have the same energy for serving them here that we would have for going over there?” he asks.

Leading When the Right Call Costs Something

After more than 20 years in leadership, Damon describes himself as a relaxed, go-with-the-flow person. That made one season in his previous role harder. When leadership changed, he saw decisions that seemed to favor those at the top rather than the students, families, and community the organization existed to serve.

So he spoke up. “As a believer, you want to operate in grace,” he says. “But you’re also called to do what’s right for the organization. Sometimes God allows you to see blind spots others aren’t seeing. The question is, is it about me, or is it about what’s best?”

He is honest that speaking up doesn't always end favorably. His answer is the same one he gives players: trust God’s timing. Faith, for Damon, shows up mostly as prayer before the hard conversation, and peace after it.

Presence Before Words, and Everyone Has a Ministry

Asked how he knows when to counsel and when to simply be there, Damon starts with a broader point. Chaplaincy isn't reserved for chaplains. “If you go to work, you have a ministry. If you have a family, you have a ministry. If you live in a neighborhood, you have a ministry.”

Sometimes that ministry means sharing what God taught him through his own hard seasons. Often it means saying nothing. He recently visited a friend in his 50s in the hospital after a stroke. “All you can do is pray and hug and say, ‘We’ll be here with you through it all,’” he says. “Your willingness to show up speaks as much as words could.” The key, he says, is staying connected to the vine so the Spirit leads rather than “what Damon thinks is best.”

Stewarding the People in Front of You

For leaders who feel their contribution is too small, Damon offers a challenge. If you lead people, you are already positioned for a large impact. He sees mentorship as part of the job description. His own staff are people God has placed in his care, and his task is to help them grow into whatever comes next for them.

He is open about his own faith in that process. Where staff members share it, he encourages them spiritually. Where they don't, he says he “speaks life” into them, and some have grown in faith, and a few have even come to know Christ. “Where you are right now is the preparation for what He has next for you,” he tells them.

“Change the perspective. Don’t look at it through a worldly lens. Ask why God placed you here and what He wants you to do. You’re just trusting Him, and He will get the glory.”

He also reminds leaders that faithfulness often looks unremarkable. Chaplains show up season after season without seeing immediate results. “You keep planting seeds,” he says, “and over time you start to see the fruit.”

What We Can Do This Week

Damon is a father of four daughters, and what he hopes they take from his life is simple. “A father loves his daughters, but God loves them so much more. They were designed for a purpose. Keep going to Him.” When they see God do remarkable things, he reminds them it isn't about the family. “It’s just Him.”

For leaders reading, his example suggests a few practical steps:

• Separate worth from output. Name one place where your identity is tied to your title, your numbers, or your paycheck, and bring it to God in prayer.

• Show up for someone. Visit, call, or sit with someone who is struggling. Resist the urge to fix them.

• Invest in a team member. Ask what they are being prepared for, and help them get there.

• Look at your neighbors. Consider who God has brought near to you, and how your church or business might serve them.

Damon invites others to come alongside the work in two ways. First, pray for Prestige Learning Institute and for the chaplains serving across the NBA. Second, consider partnering, whether as a church or an individual supporter. “We’re all on the same team trying to do what the Lord has called us to do,” he says, “so that others can know how much He loves them and that He has a purpose and plan for their lives.”