The Atlanta Hawks have likely alienated their own players and their fans. Owner Bruce Levenson decided to sell his share in the team after admitting to a racially charged email, but the issue goes deeper than one man. A lot has been learned since the news broke on Sunday about how the Hawks came upon Levenson's email from 2012 and there's league-wide concern that other private matters could be publicly revealed.
Danny Ferry punished after scouting report led Hawks to Bruce Levenson’s email
Hawks owner Bruce Levenson will sell his stake in the team after admitting to a racially charged email, but the situation now appears more complicated.
Daniel Shirey-USA TODAY Sports
How did the Hawks come across the email?: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the issue of racism came up in June. GM Danny Ferry was discussing free agency and failed to edit out a racist remark from the background report of a player. ESPN first reported that the player mentioned by Ferry was Miami Heat forward Luol Deng. The Hawks, upset over Ferry's unedited comments, decided to conduct an investigation led by a law firm, which recorded 19 interviews and scanned 24,000 documents, one of which was Levenson's email.
More on the Levenson fallout
More on the Levenson fallout
Will Ferry be punished?: Ferry will be punished but the team has kept the details private.
What does this mean for the league?: The first whispers of the scandal spread fear across the NBA as owners worried about whether they had crossed the line in the past, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski. Could their ownership be at risk?
People are interested in buying the Hawks, say the Hawks: CEO Steve Koonin will take over running the operations of the franchise following Levenson’s decision to step aside. He told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he’s already received more than seven phone calls from “multi-billionaires” that have interest in buying a share of the franchise.
The players are not happy: Koonin met with the Hawks players to discuss the matter on Sunday night and told CNN that it was like “walking into a funeral.”
Wrong on many levels: Hawks fan Jason Walker discusses why the Levenson email is so disappointing. He says people didn’t go to games because of the bad ownership -- it didn’t have anything to do with the racism cited by Levenson.
A different opinion: While many are quick to throw Levenson into the same category as exiled former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar believes that there's not much wrong with Levenson touching on race in order to help improve his business, even if there are stereotypes involved. Abdul-Jabbar says Levenson's worst crime is "misguided white guilt."
The thing that makes me mad is that Levenson was too quick to rend his clothing and shout mea culpa. In his apology, he wrote: “By focusing on race, I also sent the unintentional and hurtful message that our white fans are more valuable than our black fans.” But that’s not the message in the email at all. If the seats had all been filled, even if all by blacks, the email wouldn’t have been written. He wasn’t valuing white fans over blacks, he was trying to figure out a way to change what he thought was the white perception in Atlanta so he could sell more tickets. That’s his job.
See More:
