Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry said that free agent Luol Deng had "some African in him" when reading a scouting report to the team's management this summer. The comments, which were previously unknown, thrust the team into its investigation that caused owner Bruce Levenson to step down because of a racially charged email. Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski reports Ferry's comments went like so:
Danny Ferry said Luol Deng had ‘some African in him’, according to report
The Hawks general manager Danny Ferry didn’t edit himself in reading a scouting report about free agent Luol Deng.
Daniel Shirey-USA TODAY Sports
“He’s still a young guy overall,” Ferry said [of Deng], 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.“Those remarks reportedly came from Ferry on a conference call as he laid out available free agent options this summer. ESPN first reported that Deng was the player Ferry mentioned, and the Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that acting team manager Steve Koonin has disciplined Ferry. Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports Ferry’s punishment won’t go beyond an undisclosed team sanction, but also reported Hawks co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. called for Ferry to be fired in June.
Wojnarowski also reports that Ferry has reached out to Deng's agent and the forward, who signed with the Miami Heat this offseason.
Ferry called Ron Shade, Deng's agent, to apologize. "I have no reaction, but we've spoken," Shade tells Yahoo. Ferry reached out to Deng too
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@WojYahooNBA) September 8, 2014 Koonin said the team was taken aback by the comments from Ferry, which reportedly were being repeated and unedited by the general manager from a scouting report.
‘This is wrong,” Koonin told the Atlanta Journal Constitution of the reaction to Ferry’s language. “This should not be said. It’s not appropriate in any world but not a post-(Donald) Sterling world.”
The investigation following Ferry’s comments led to Levenson announcing that he will sell his share of the team after it came to light that his email from 2012 contained racially charged opinions on why the team wasn’t selling season tickets.
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