Recently, the Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry was caught in a controversy after he was heard saying a racially charged comment about Luol Deng.
Because of this, CEO Steve Koonin has disciplined Ferry but decided to keep him with the team. The disciplinary action was not put into details by the CEO though.
That is why, when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver arrived in Barcelona to witness the FIBA World Cup, he was prompted to comment on the situation.
Silver talked to Sam Amick for USA Today and he said that "the discipline of a team employee is typically determined by the team, and in this case the Hawks hired a prestigious Atlanta law firm to investigate the circumstances of Danny Ferry's clearly inappropriate and unacceptable remarks. In my view, those comments, taken alone, do not merit his losing his job."
Ferry had a conference call with some of the minority owners of the team back in June just before the start of free agency. That is when the topic of Luol Deng came and the comments came in. He said "He has a little African in him. Not in a bad way, but he's like a guy who would have a nice store out front but sell you counterfeit stuff out the back..... For example, 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]."
But for Silver, he sees that Ferry's comment does not merit a termination and that he will the decision to Hawks Management. He continued "It's a question of context ... These words, in this context, understanding the full story here, the existence of the scouting report, the fact that he was looking at the scouting report as a reference when he was making these remarks, what I'm saying is - and frankly my opinion - is that this is a team decision in terms of what the appropriate discipline is for their employee. But if I'm being asked my view, I'm saying that, based on what I know about the circumstances, I don't think it's a terminable offense."
