Hawks Rumors

Southeast Notes: Hawks, Heat, Ferry

September 14th, 2014 at 6:40pm CST by Zachary Links

The Heat may take a step back this season, but on an individual level, Mario Chalmers‘ father says that his son is excited about his role for the coming season, writes Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. “As sad we all are to see LeBron [James] go, Mario’s excited to go back to his natural position. He loves being a playmaker. And there will be more opportunities to score,” said Ronnie Chalmers. Here’s more out of the Southeast Division..

Despite the controversy surrounding the Hawks and the racist comments made by owner Bruce Levenson and GM Danny Ferry, Atlanta will continue to be a free agent destination, A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com opines. Blakely believes that the organization will distance themselves from the incident and people involved as quickly as possible, and players will use the departures of those involved as justification for signing with the team.
The Heat are still looking at backup veteran centers, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald (on Twitter). Miami recently signed undrafted power forward Khem Birch but their search for size is not yet through.
The Hawks‘ issues are a matter of league-wide importance, writes Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe. Beyond the very obvious problems with what went on in Atlanta, former union executive director Charles Grantham wonders aloud if teams are sharing negative information on their players to reduce their worth. Ferry reportedly received negative information on Luol Deng from another club and then mentioned it on the now infamous conference call.

Eddie Scarito contributed to this post.

And-Ones: Hornets, Favors, Hawks

September 13th, 2014 at 10:31pm CST by Cray Allred

Earlier today, we passed along word from coach Steve Clifford that the Hornets are seeking frontcourt help. Clifford’s interview with Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer touched on some more of Charlotte’s roster, including how he’ll use newly signed Marvin Williams. “He’ll play both forward spots, but I see him primarily as a stretch [power forward],” said Clifford. “He’s a very smart player who makes smart, simple plays. And he’s very professional in his approach.” Here’s a rundown of league news and notes, including more from Clifford:

Clifford revealed that Jeff Taylor‘s recovery from an Achilles injury has been interfered with by a personal matter. “Unfortunately, Jeff has a family situation in Sweden [keeping him away from Charlotte],” he told Bonnell. “Nothing can be done about that and you know he’s an exceptional worker, but he’s had to miss our five optional workouts. So it’s hard to get a feel for where he’s at. He did a couple of summer-league practices. Medically he’s fine. So it’s just a matter of having more continuity, so that when he plants and cuts and jumps he’s confident [in his recovery.]”
Milos Teodosic is an NBA-caliber player lighting up the World Cup, but the Serbian star won’t consider a move stateside unless he’s offered upwards of $3MM in annual salary, reports Marc Stein of ESPN.com (on Twitter). The Grizzlies were the last team to make a serious run at the point guard, when he spurned them last summer.
Tony Jones of The Salt Lake Tribune profiles Derrick Favors, the big man whose four-year, $48MM extension will commence this season. The center tells Jones he’s comfortable taking the next step as a franchise cornerstone for the Jazz, a sentiment GM Dennis Lindsey seconds. “This is really the second stage for Derrick,” Lindsey said. “We’ve had patience with him and he’s had a natural progression. With Derrick, nobody can accuse the Jazz of skipping steps. We know that we’re making a significant investment in him by giving him the contract extension. Derrick has taken ownership of his development.”
The Basketball Insiders team previewed the upcoming season for the Hawks.
J.A. Adande of ESPN.com writes that the NBA’s slowness to identify and dismiss the source of the racial slur from the scouting report on Luol Deng that triggered the Hawks scandal indicates a willingness to harbor that sentiment in the league, contrary to the commissioner’s declaration to root out racism when he first banned Donald Sterling.

Hawks Rumors: Saturday

September 13th, 2014 at 7:15pm CST by Eddie Scarito

This offseason won’t be remembered for anything the Hawks did to upgrade their roster, but instead the gloom of the racially charged comments from controlling owner Bruce Levenson and GM Danny Ferry will be the enduring sentiment. It’s been a busy week in Atlanta, and if you want a recap you can check out the previous updates for Monday; Tuesday; Wednesday; Thursday; and Friday. We’ll track today’s developments here, and any additional updates will be added to the top.

7:15pm update:

In a subscription-only interview, an anonymous scout tells Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel that they’ve never seen the kind of racial stereotyping that was present in the Deng report. “I’ve never seen that before, not in a negative way,” the veteran scout said. “You might say a typical ‘European’ player, but ‘African’ has its own special connotation. It’s not neutral, and then there were the subsequent comments. I think it’s exceptionally rare. I’ve read hundreds, thousands of scouting reports. At draft time you see all the reports, and this simply does not ring a bell about a racial component. You’re always evaluating character. What’s rare is connecting character to racial stuff. That’s what was so troubling about this.”
The scout tells Winderman that he doesn’t expect Deng’s reputation around the league to suffer from the leaked report. “All I know is one of their coaches was just ecstatic about him, coaching him,” the scout said. “The coaching staff was big on him and I think that’s more than just the fact that he was a good player. I haven’t heard anything negative. All I’ve heard is positive from their coaching staff.”
The scout confirmed that rigorous personality scouting is considered fair game for player scouting, even to the extent of hiring a private investigator.

3:42pm update:

Team CEO Steve Koonin released a letter apologizing for the recent incidents within the organization and acknowledged that the team’s management has let fans down. USA Today Sports’ For The Win is hosting an image of the entire piece.
Carmelo Anthony believes the scandal will have a negative impact on the Hawks, as Tim Bontemps of the New York Post details. “[There] ain’t nobody [who] would want to go there,” said ‘Melo. “As a player, as an athlete, we’re looking for a job, we’re trying to find a place where we can move our family, we can make our family comfortable, where we can be comfortable in a comfortable environment, but those comments right there, we would never look at. I’m speaking on behalf of all athletes. We would never look at a situation like that, I don’t care what it is.“

10:55am update:

With Ferry taking an indefinite leave of absence, Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Justin Termine of CineSport discuss his future with the franchise (video link).
Ferry’s worst mistake, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, was that he didn’t take ownership of his comments, regardless of if he was reading them aloud, or they were his altogether. Being in charge of the franchise makes Ferry accountable for them either way, opines Wojnarowski.
The Hawks face a number of challenges on and off the court in rebuilding their franchise’s image, writes Charles Odum of USA Today.

9:00am update:

Aside from the racial component, the nature of the scouting report in question covered rumors and judgments regarding Luol Deng’s character, and a widespread league scouting emphasis that targets players’ private lives and personalities, writes Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Executives and scouts tell Berger that the “dirty work” focus in scouting came about in the early 2000s, as information on college players with ever-shorter amateur careers became more scarce. Berger says that the tendencies of NBA scouts to seek information from ball boys, teammates, friends, and other non-official team sources has been mirrored by NBA reporters in seeking inside information. Berger also wonders whether African scouts will be comfortable working with Ferry if he returns to his post, but was unable to reach any for comment.
The embarrassing dysfunction from the Hawks franchise is nothing new, Sean Deveney of the Sporting News writes, and he recounts a string of botched ownership transfers in recent decades.
Mark Bradley of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution thinks that Ferry’s decision to take a leave of absence has increased the GM’s odds of keeping his job in the long run.

Cray Allred contributed to this post.

Eastern Notes: Hawks, Harris, Celtics, Knicks

September 12th, 2014 at 9:58pm CST by Cray Allred

Sports attorney Doug Davis, son of entertainment fixture Clive Davis, is an early candidate to purchase the Hawks, reports Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Vivlamore credits the New York Post as first to reveal that the younger Davis is assembling a potential ownership group. Davis sent out a pair of tweets that hints at his interest in the team (H/T James Herbert of CBSSports.com). Here’s more from the Eastern Conference:

Former Hawk and current director of player personnel and GM for the Kings D-League affiliate Shareef Abdur-Rahim penned an open letter to Yahoo! Sports regarding the Hawks scandal. Abdur-Rahim recalls his time with Atlanta as a player as having little fan support, pointing out that African-American cheerleaders and fans weren’t the cause for a struggling franchise then, and aren’t now. “I personally interacted with both Bruce Levenson and Danny Ferry on multiple occasions; my experiences with both have always been pleasant,” said Abdur-Rahim. “However, their comments represent a lack of respect and sensitivity for individuals with different experiences and backgrounds than themselves. I pray both individuals learn from this situation and work to regain the trust of the great people of Atlanta.”
Jeff Schultz of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution finds it suspicious that the leaked scouting report on Luol Deng was released after the audio of the conference call was leaked, although he stops short of asserting it was doctored. Schultz thinks the purity of the report is ultimately beside the point, considering Ferry’s failure to filter the offensive comments before reading them in any case. The Journal-Constitution scribe is disappointed in the shifts in the story from team brass, and believes the damage control attempted by Atlanta will ultimately prove to be more harmful than a more transparent approach would have been.
Tobias Harris tells Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel that he wants to reach an agreement with the Magic on a rookie scale extension, but isn’t sure if a deal will be struck this fall. “Obviously, I want to be here,” said Harris. “I love the fans, the city of Orlando and the guys. Management knows I want to be here. It’s the perfect situation for me…I don’t know. That’s up to [Orlando].”
A group of Basketball Insiders writers previewed the upcoming season for the Magic, Celtics, and Knicks.

And-Ones: Deng, Knicks, Dragic, West

September 12th, 2014 at 6:02pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Luol Deng report from the RealGM scouting service that was the source of the racially charged statements that Hawks GM Danny Ferry said aloud in a June conference call contains several tidbits of collateral information on storylines surrounding Deng the past couple of years. One of the anonymous sources quoted in the report points to hard feelings Deng had toward the Bulls as they allegedly pushed him to play through injury and played hardball with an extension offer. The same source cites “major locker room issues” that existed between two Cavaliers during Deng’s tenure there, and while the names are redacted, many accounts have pointed to tension between Kyrie Irving and Dion Waiters. The report also pointed to interest in Deng from the Hornets, Suns, Mavs and Lakers around last year’s trade deadline. Aside from the most explosive racial comments, the report contains a few mild criticisms of Deng’s ability on the court and his persona off of it, but mostly serves to paint Deng as a valuable player and an upstanding character. While the fallout from the Hawks saga continues, here’s more from other corners of the league:

Knicks president Phil Jackson tells Scott Cacciola of The New York Times that he and owner James Dolan didn’t speak in August and have otherwise been having only a couple conversations a month as Dolan keeps his promise not to interfere. An agent said to Cacciola that when he appealed to Dolan when Jackson wouldn’t budge in negotiations, he found the owner unwilling to provide recourse behind Jackson’s back, and Dolan insists to the Times scribe that he won’t change his ways if the team starts losing this season.
Zoran Dragic acknowledged that playing in the NBA appeals to him but said he’s on his way to training camp with Spain’s Unicaja Malaga, as he told Gal Zbačnik of Kosarka.si (translation via Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia). Dragic’s contract with the team reportedly gives him until October 5th to find an NBA deal, and several teams appear to be in pursuit.
Delonte West has agreed to return to China on a one-year deal with the Shanghai Sharks, reports Chris Haynes of the Plain Dealer (on Twitter). West, who hasn’t played in the NBA since the 2012/13 preseason, spent last year with China’s Fujian Sturgeons.

Hawks Rumors: Friday

September 12th, 2014 at 5:03pm CST by Chuck Myron

It had been a quiet offseason for the Hawks, but they wound up making waves in undesirable fashion this week as racially charged language from controlling owner Bruce Levenson and GM Danny Ferry plunged the franchise into turmoil. We’ll track today’s developments here, and any additional updates will be added to the top.

5:03pm update:

Players union interim executive director Ron Klempner issued a statement acknowledging Ferry’s public apology to Deng. USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt provides a full transcript of the statement via Twitter. “The NBPA deplores the insensitive & thoroughly inappropriate remarks by Danny Ferry,” Klempner said in part. “We are pleased to learn that Ferry acknowledges his statements were offensive, has extended a personal apology to Luol Deng and the other Atlanta Hawks players and that the Hawks organization has determined that discipline of Ferry was warranted.”

3:49pm update:

Kyle Korver says Deng told him he doesn’t believe Ferry or anyone with the Hawks organization is a racist, and Korver also expressed his own support for the team in an interview with Vivlamore. “My thoughts are, when I got traded to the Hawks, I didn’t want to come here because all I knew was what I had heard, about bad culture and no fans and no excitement in the city,” Korver said in part. “So I didn’t want to come to Atlanta. At all. I was bummed to leave Chicago. But by the next summer, I chose to re-sign and come back to Atlanta. After a year of watching what Danny (Ferry) was doing and the people he was bringing in. Everything I saw, was so attractive to me and I really believed in it. I believed that he was going to turn things around. I saw that Atlanta was an incredible city, and that there was so much potential here to both raise my family and help build a great basketball culture.”
Ferry is taking an indefinite leave of absence, as we covered in a full story.

2:46pm update:

The copy of the scouting report, as hosted by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, that Ferry is to have read indicates that the information came from someone associated with the Cavs. “Con isn’t bad, but it’s there. African-like store front looks great but there’s a black market section in the back,” the report reads in part. It also attributes a “sense of entitlement” to Deng and suggests that Deng held back while with the Cavs last season to protect himself from injury before he hit free agency in the summer, and that Deng “treated Cleveland like a pit-stop.” Still, the report indicates that he’d be welcome to return to the Cavs.

1:17pm update:

The snippet of the report that Vivlamore has posted closely resembles some of what Ferry said on the recording of the conference call. “He is a good guy on the cover but he is an African. He has a little two-step in him = says what you want to hear but behind closed doors he could be killing you,” the report stated in part.

1:08pm update:

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB-TV in Atlanta have obtained a copy of the scouting report on Deng that Ferry is to have read during the conference call, Vivlamore tweets. So, that further confirms the report’s existence and casts doubt on the notion that Ferry came up with the disparaging remarks about Deng on his own. The report does reference Deng’s African heritage, according to Vivlamore, but it’s not clear exactly what the report said at this point.

12:34pm update:

An NBA investigator has seen the report from which Ferry is to have read the remarks about Luol Deng that touched off the controversy, a source tells USA Today’s Sam Amick. The league isn’t punishing Ferry, whom the Hawks have already disciplined, and commissioner Adam Silver has said he doesn’t think Ferry deserves to be fired. Thursday’s release of the audio from the conference call in which Ferry recited insults with racial overtones about Deng prompted widespread speculation that Ferry made the comments off the cuff, and that he wasn’t reading from a scouting report. The investigator also heard the audio before it became public, Amick reports.
Levenson sent a sharply worded response to a letter that co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. sent to him in June in which Gearon called for Ferry’s ouster, as Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution documents within a timeline of the controversy. Levenson cited “false and misleading comments” within Gearon’s letter, and Levenson expressed reservations about continuing his partnership with Gearon. Levenson announced this past weekend that he’s selling his stake in the team.
Boris Diaw, Channing Frye, Pau Gasol, Greg Monroe and Thabo Sefolosha were among the other players the Hawks discussed during that conference call, as Vivlamore notes in the same piece. Of those names, Sefolosha was the only one who signed with the Hawks.

Danny Ferry Takes Indefinite Leave From Hawks

September 12th, 2014 at 3:36pm CST by Chuck Myron

3:36pm: Ferry apologized to Deng as part of a statement the Hawks sent out via another press release, one in which he also addressed his leave of absence.

“My focus moving forward is to tirelessly work to rebuild trust with this community and with our fans,” Ferry said in part. “I realize that my words may ring hollow now and my future actions must speak for me. I will maximize my time during this leave to meet with community leaders and further educate myself and others on the extremely sensitive issues surrounding race, diversity, and inclusion. I will find a way to make a positive difference in this area, and further learn from the sensitivity training that I will go through.”

3:04pm: Danny Ferry is taking an indefinite leave of absence from his job as Hawks GM, the team announced via press release. Coach Mike Budenholzer will assume control of the basketball operations while Ferry is away, according to the team’s statement, which CEO Steve Koonin authored.

“This has been an incredibly difficult time for him and his family and it is my hope that this time away from the Hawks organization allows him the privacy he needs to listen to the community, to learn about his mistakes, and to begin the long process of personal healing,” Koonin said in part. “As a human being, manager and friend, I wish him well as he undergoes this process.”

Koonin also hints at the turmoil within the team’s ownership group, which has been wracked with infighting since purchasing the team nine years ago. Co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. has sought Ferry’s ouster and has butted heads with controlling owner Bruce Levenson, who’s selling his stake.

“While the issues related to race are deeply troubling, at the heart of this dispute is an unfortunate disagreement amongst owners,” Koonin said. “That said, we have taken several steps to address what we can do as an organization to be better and stronger, including working with a diversity consultant to examine us and to train us to ensure something like this never happens again, we are committed to hiring a Chief Diversity Officer, and we have and will continue to meet with community leaders in an ongoing way to ensure our values reflect the community in which we play and work. The process of selling the team, which is to remain in Atlanta, is already underway.”

Budenholzer had been preparing to go into just his second season as an NBA head coach after having spent the previous 17 years as an assistant coach for the Spurs. He’s never held a job other than coach in the NBA, save for a two-season stint as video coordinator for the Spurs before he moved to the team’s bench. Atlanta has deals with 15 players, but the team will likely make multiple additions within the next few weeks for training camp.

Koonin has publicly backed Ferry, who received censure from the Hawks for having repeated racially charged statements about free agent target Luol Deng, who’s now with the Heat. Still, Koonin has stood by his decision not to force Ferry out, and Ferry gave no indication he planned to resign when he expressed regret earlier this week about repeating the statements. The NBA has maintained that it doesn’t intend to punish Ferry, and commissioner Adam Silver has said he doesn’t believe what Ferry did should prompt the Hawks to terminate him.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Hawks Rumors: Thursday

September 11th, 2014 at 6:30pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Hawks scandal is in its fifth day, and revelations continue to surface. We’ll track today’s latest developments here, and any additional updates will be added to the top of the post:

6:30pm update:

Portions of the audio tape from the conference call during which Ferry’s comments were made have now been released, courtesy of Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/09/10/5165663/dominique-wilkins-reportedly-interested.html#.VBIo6mPa-Uk#storylink=cpy

2:34pm update:

Raptors GM Masai Ujiri penned a piece for The Globe and Mail in which he called upon people to “measure [Ferry’s] heart” and forgive him if they believe that he made “an honest and isolated error.” “I spoke to Danny myself about this,” Ujiri wrote in part. “He started off by apologizing to Luol. He apologized to me and apologized for any insult he’d offered to African people in general. He explained the incident as best he could to me. There are some things about that conversation I would like to keep between the two of us, but I came away feeling like I’d understood what he had to say.”

1:29pm update:

GM Danny Ferry‘s fateful remarks about Luol Deng weren’t the first racially charged statements attributed to Ferry, as SB Nation’s Tom Ziller details. Agent William Phillips told Marty McNeal of The Sacramento Bee in 2006 that Ferry, then a player for the Spurs, used an racist slur to insult Phillips client Bonzi Wells during a game in 2002, as McNeal reminded with a pair of tweets this week. Ferry called McNeal after the story ran to deny using the epithet. Commissioner Adam Silver cited Ferry’s clean track record when he said Wednesday that he didn’t think the Hawks should fire Ferry.
Ferry’s “smug manner” of dealing with some Hawks staffers rubbed co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. the wrong way, a source tells Michael Lee of The Washington Post. Gearon was reportedly an opponent of Ferry even before Ferry made his comments about Deng in June.
Steve Belkin’s departure from the Hawks ownership group a few years ago left Bruce Levenson with a stake representing close to 60% of the franchise, a source tells TNT’s David Aldridge. That seems to conflict with a report we passed along Tuesday from Mark Bradley of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution indicating that Levenson doesn’t own a majority of the team. Levenson was acting as the controlling owner of the Hawks until this past weekend, when he announced that he was selling his share after the revelation of a racially charged 2012 email.

And-Ones: Roberts, Haddadi, Ferry, Parsons

September 10th, 2014 at 9:03pm CST by Alex Lee

The summer of 2014 continued to belong to Boris Diaw, as the Spurs star led France to a huge upset of host Spain in the quarterfinals of the Basketball World Cup earlier today. Meanwhile, on American soil, details continue to emerge in the situation in Atlanta. Here are some additional updates from around the league, Hawks-related and otherwise, on Wednesday night:

Michele Roberts‘ term as executive director of the NBPA will begin at the end of September, according to Sam Amick of USA Today, who writes that the trial lawyer won’t have much time to ease into the job with the Hawks saga in full swing. Obligations from her previous job and ongoing contract negotiations have prevented Roberts from starting sooner, according to Amick. Acting executive director Ron Klempner, who issued a statement on the Atlanta situation on Monday, has been has handling the role on an interim basis since Billy Hunter was fired in 2013.
Seven-foot Iranian center Hamed Haddadi wants to explore the possibility of a return to the NBA before committing to Qingdao Double Star of China, according to Sports Sohu (translation via Sportando). The 29-year-old Haddadi played in China and then Iran last season after spending five years in the NBA with the Grizzlies and Suns. He has not been linked to any NBA teams this offseason.
Even if Danny Ferry was indeed reading a scouting report written by someone else, Bob Young of AZCentral opines that the Hawks GM should still resign for not immediately firing that member of his staff on the spot. Young also points out that Ferry and the Hawks have been fortunate that the NFL scandal has somewhat overshadowed what has transpired in Atlanta.
Mavericks forward Chandler Parsons said the Rockets told him to “go get the biggest deal and the best deal for you and we’re matching,” writes Michael Florek of The Dallas Morning News. Parsons, of course, proceeded to do just that — signing a three-year, $45MM deal with Dallas — but Houston didn’t follow suit.

Hawks Rumors: Wednesday

September 10th, 2014 at 4:07pm CST by Chuck Myron

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports uncovered the recording of the meeting in which Hawks GM Danny Ferry made his fateful remarks about Luol Deng. We’ll pass along the revelations from that story amid the latest news surrounding the Hawks controversy, with any additional updates throughout the day at the top:

4:07pm update:

Commissioner Adam Silver cited Ferry’s otherwise upstanding track record in telling USA Today’s Sam Amick that he doesn’t think the Hawks should fire Ferry. “It’s a question of context,” Silver said in part. “… 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.”

1:54pm update:

Ferry read more statements in the meeting that impugned Deng’s character, as Wojnarowski transcribes. “… 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,”‘ Ferry said on the recording. “But talking to reporters, you know they can [believe it].”
Ferry’s report also brought up concerns about Deng’s focus, Wojnarowski reveals. “… Good guy in Chicago,” as Ferry is heard saying. “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.”
Wojnarowski suggests that the remarks Ferry made on the recording were his own, and not words he read from a report, as Ferry has claimed. However, that’s merely based on Wojnarowski’s own observation.
Co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. had sought Ferry’s ouster even before Ferry’s racially charged remarks in June that sparked the controversy, Wojnarowski writes. Gearon made an immediate audible reaction to Ferry’s comments about Deng, comparing them to the inflammatory remarks that led to Donald Sterling’s exit from the Clippers, as the Yahoo! scribe notes. An email Gearon sent in reaction to the one with racial overtones that prompted outgoing controlling owner Bruce Levenson to sell the team was more matter-of-fact, and it didn’t entail the sort of dramatic reaction that Gearon had to Ferry’s comments, Wojnarowski shows.
The league office is “livid” with Gearon, Wojnarowski writes, though the precise reason for that anger isn’t entirely clear.
The Hawks offered Deng a two-year, $20MM deal and a one-year, $10MM arrangement, and Ferry was the team’s greatest supporter for signing him, Wojnarowski hears. The salaries Atlanta offered are similar to the ones Deng will receive on his contract with the Heat.
Ferry has his boosters around the league, but many find him distant and unsympathetic and find it difficult to work with the Hawks front office, according to Wojnarowski.
The conversation covered many free agent targets, including Carmelo Anthony. Ferry said that Anthony “can shoot the [expletive] out of it, but he screws you up in other ways,” as Wojnarowski transcribes, though Ferry also saw value in giving him a lucrative deal.
At least one civil rights leader expressed frustration when the Hawks called off a meeting that was set for today with civil rights leaders in Atlanta, Charles Odumap of The Associated Press reports. The Hawks called the meeting a “priority” and indicated their intention to reschedule in a press release today.

Load More Posts