Posted on 09/09/2014 7:22:32 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The trigger of events that led to the toppling of Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson began with general manager Danny Ferry referring to free agent Luol Deng as having "some African in him" on an organizational conference call, league sources with direct knowledge of the probe told Yahoo Sports.
"He's still a young guy overall," Ferry said, league sources with direct knowledge of the probe told Yahoo. “He's a good guy overall. But he's not perfect. He's got some African in him. And I don't say that in a bad way."
Deng, considered one of the highest-character players in the NBA, was born in the Sudan. The call with the ownership group had been set up to inform them of free-agent options on the market in July.
Ferry met with the Hawks coaches and players on Sunday and disclosed those comments with an apology, sources told Yahoo Sports.
Ferry reached out to Deng and Deng's agent, Ron Shade, on Monday, Shade told Yahoo Sports. Ferry hadn't yet spoken to Deng, but he did talk to Shade, a Chicago-based agent. "I have no reaction, but we've spoken," Shade told Yahoo.
Ferry was on the phone with seven Hawks owners and was reading off a report in which the information, Ferry said, had been gathered through a network of scouts, officials, players, coaches and others around basketball.
Hawks CEO Steve Koonin told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Ferry had received an undisclosed punishment, but would remain as GM.
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
I know I can be slow, but I fail to see what is happening.
Two Duke alums. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with Luol and he’s a good guy.
So, why the heck are the Atlanta Hawks “investigating” an innocuous statement like this?
Waste of time and money...
Most Africans I meet here have a lot of common sense. They haven’t grown up in the US welfare state and with the American ideology of racial victimhood.
Maybe he should have been fired/fined for talking gibberish - and thereby wasting people's time.
I have no idea what message Ferry was trying to convey.
I’ll tell you who ought to be fired... the person who decided to launch a time and money wasting investigation over something as innocuous as this statement.
RE: Most Africans I meet here have a lot of common sense.
Which means the guy who seeks to launch an investigation over this is devoid of common sense.
True.
Kind of like a verbal burp: 'OK ... I have no idea what you just said, so lets move along...'
If someone is going to launch an investigation about every tongue-tied utterance -- just because in some universe, when held up to the right light and angle, it might be construed as offensive to somebody ... we are in a world of hurt.
PC gone wild.
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