Report: Transcript reveals dysfunctional Hawks front office
A transcript of the fateful call that landed Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry in hot water has revealed a bevy of dysfunction at the top of the organization.
The phone call that took place on a Friday afternoon in June – which was obtained by Yahoo! Sports – expands on the comments made by Ferry towards then-free agent forward Luol Deng.
In addition to mentioning that Deng has "got some African in him" and alluding to a two-faced nature, Ferry went on to paint Deng as a disruptor behind the scenes:
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]... 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.
One of the Hawks owners, Michael Gearon Jr., reportedly had his level of influence lessened significantly under the leadership of Ferry and owner Bruce Levenson, and saw this call as an opportunity to force Ferry out the door and possibly take Levenson along with him.
Gearon had, on more than one occasion, made it known to people inside and outside the organization that he wanted Ferry out as GM, according to Adrian Wojnarowski. He was recording the call, and was the one to quickly email Levenson to demand Ferry's removal.
He had been addressed in Levenson's racially-charged email from August 2012 outlining the team's attendance problems, and between the two incidents definitely had enough material to "bring down the power structure" of the Hawks front office.
Ferry remains steadfast that the racially-charged words about Deng belong to outside sources, though the context of the transcripts appear to be his own interjections on intel the team had gathered.
The onus now falls on team CEO Steve Koonin, who will have to sort out whether he believes Ferry's words are grounds for termination or if he will even be capable of leading the franchise with his reputation now unquestionably linked to the phone call.
It appears that Gearon will have gotten what he wanted all along. The question is how much irrevocable damage has been done to the Hawks franchise as a result.