The Atlanta Hawks have been a long-running joke among NBA circles, mostly for being just about the most mediocre and boring team in the league, and with low fan attendance to match. Now, we may have an idea why the team is such a mess. Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski has uncovered transcripts of a conference call in which general manager Danny Ferry made his racially-charged comments about Luol Deng. So, who was the V. Stiviano to Ferry’s Sterling? Disgruntled minority owner Michael Gearon Jr., who had been slowly losing his front office influence thanks to the combination of Ferry and controlling owner Bruce Levenson.
The call, which took place in June of this year, began with a discussion about Carmelo Anthony’s impending free agency:
The call proceeded with Ferry hustling through free agent names, a list that included Carmelo Anthony: “He can shoot the [expletive] out of it, but he screws you up in other ways,” Ferry said, according to a transcript obtained by Yahoo Sports.
Ferry would go on to say of Anthony: “So is he really worth the 20 million dollars? … I would argue if he plays the right way, absolutely.”
Woj rightly points out that the Hawks had no shot at Carmelo, and the discussion moved to the now-infamous exchange about Luol Deng, whom the Hawks did later approach with two offers:
On and on, Ferry started about how Deng “has got some African in him” and proceeded to make a comparison to Africans with phony facades selling counterfeit goods.
As soon as those words left Ferry’s mouth on the call, Gearon responded in a dramatic way in the background of the tape recording, according to a partial transcript of the call obtained by Yahoo Sports.
“Oh my God, that comment sounds like Sterling on TMZ,” Gearon said.
Ferry’s position since his comments became public is that he was reading off a report from an unnamed source (assumed to be a scout). Ferry’s tone doesn’t really appear to jive with that:
On Deng, Ferry said: “… For example, he can come out and be an unnamed source for a story and two days later come out and say, ‘That absolutely was not me. I can’t believe someone said that.’
“But talking to reporters, you know they can [believe it].”
Ferry kept going on Deng: “… Good guy in Chicago. They will tell you he was good for their culture, but not a culture setter. He played hard and all those things, but he was very worried about his bobble-head being the last one given away that year, or there was not enough stuff of him in the [team] store … kind of a complex guy.”
While Gearon clearly has an axe to grind with Ferry, he didn’t appear to have a problem (at least, initially) with Levenson’s e-mail, which was composed two years ago. In fact, according to an e-mail obtained by Woj dated August 27th, 2012, Gearon couldn’t even be bothered to address it immediately:
In an email obtained by Yahoo Sports and dated Aug. 27, 2012, Gearon replied to Levenson’s racially charged correspondence this way: “Was tied up … for 2 hours this morning and then had to run to a meeting. Will call soon.”
Woj says that response came within an hour of Levenson’s original e-mail, although Levenson initially wrote it on August 25th, but it may have been sent it to Gearon later. Regardless, Levenson’s e-mail, coupled with Ferry’s comments, appears to be the double-barreled smoking gun that Gearon needed to get rid of those standing in his way. At this point though, the best thing might be for a total house cleaning in Atlanta.
[Yahoo]
