Another controversy hits the Atlanta Hawks franchise with general manager Danny Ferry dished out a racially charged comments on Luol Deng.

The team's new majority owner wants him fired but the Hawks are sticking with the GM.

CEO Steve Koonin said last Tuesday that he will place Ferry on disciplinary actions but will keep him with the team. Although Koonin did not divulge what the punishment was but he said that his decision is based on a law firm's three-month investigation of Ferry as well as Ferry's comment on Deng as having "a little African in him."

Ferry made the inflammatory comments about Deng in a conference call with the Hawks' ownership group in June when the team pursued Deng as a free agent.

Deng who now plays with the Miami Heat commented that "I'm proud to say I actually have a lot of African in me, not just 'a little."

A letter from co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. recommends that Ferry resign or be fired. Gearon said Ferry made that description of Deng to the team's ownership group.

His letter to co-owner Levenson says that Ferry says that "Not in a bad way, but he's like a guy who would have a nice store out front and sell you counterfeit stuff out of the back."

Gearon also added "Ferry completed the racial slur by describing the player (and impliedly all persons of African descent) as a two-faced liar and cheat."

The 29 year old British professional basketball player started playing in the NBA since 2004. Born in what is now South Sudan, Deng fled the country with his family as a child, moving to Egypt and then the United Kingdom, becoming a British citizen in 2006.

Deng said "Every person should have the right to be treated with respect and evaluated as an individual, rather than be reduced to a stereotype. I am saddened and disappointed that this way of thinking still exists today. I am even more disturbed that it was shared so freely in a business setting."

Koonin hired Atlanta law firm Alston and Bird to go through documents and conduct interview and read ''every email Danny Ferry has ever sent as general manager of the Atlanta Hawks.''