Danny Ferry may be out of his post as Atlanta Hawks general manager, but he has saved some face for his prior comments on NBA All-Star Luol Deng.
ESPN.com's Kevin Arnovitz and Brian Windhorst report Saturday that Alston & Bird, a law firm based in Atlanta, finished its investigation into Ferry's unbecoming remarks about Deng from last year, concluding they weren't racially motivated.
What follows is an excerpt from Alston & Bird partner and investigation leader Bernard Taylor's explanation of the findings, addressing Ferry directly:
We reported the results of our work to the Hawks. In summary, the facts indicated that you repeated comments that were not your own about Mr. Deng from a scouting report during the call, and there was no evidence to indicate that during the call you acted in a manner motivated by negative bias toward Mr. Deng.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports initially reported on Ferry's comments in September 2014, when Ferry spoke about Deng in a seemingly racist way.
"He's still a young guy overall," said Ferry. "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." Per Saturday's report, Ferry also said of Deng, "He's like a guy who would have a nice store out front and sell you counterfeit stuff out of the back."
Ferry stated that he read those words off a variety of sources and indicated those weren't his own assessment of Deng. The Hawks had been pursuing Deng as a free agent at the time Ferry spoke about him. Ferry subsequently took an indefinite leave of absence.
Sports Illustrated's Brad Rowland weighed in on Saturday's investigation results:
Brad Rowland @BTRowlandThe "Danny Ferry was just reading a scouting report" camp is feeling pretty smart today.
Per Arnovitz, the Hawks reached a buyout agreement with Ferry for the final three years of his contract on Friday. Head coach Mike Budenholzer is taking over as team president to oversee basketball operations.
Atlanta had a magnificent 2014-15 campaign using a roster Ferry helped assemble to win the Eastern Conference during the regular season and advance to the conference finals. Though Ferry has seen success in the front office and has seemingly been exonerated from wrongdoing as it pertains to this investigation, it is impossible to know what lies ahead for Ferry in the NBA.
