Danny Ferry

Southeast Notes: Bazemore, Wizards, Hairston

December 29th, 2014 at 3:20pm CST by Chuck Myron

The Hawks and Wizards are making it tough on more ballyhooed Eastern Conference teams like the Cavs and Bulls to play catch-up. Both Atlanta and Washington have won eight of their last 10 and are within two games of the Raptors for the top spot in the conference. Here’s the latest from around the Southeast:

Kent Bazemore praised the job embattled GM Danny Ferry did constructing the team, as the Hawks shooting guard tells Raul Barrigon of HoopsHype. Ferry remains on indefinite leave of absence after making racially charged remarks this summer. “We don’t really know what was going on there,” Bazemore said. “He’s still watching over us from a distance. He still gets the bulk of the credit for turning around the Hawks organization. We kind of miss him. Coach [Mike] Budenholzer has done a great job filling in, and also [Hawks CEO] Mr. Steve Koonin. The sun is shining bright even on rainy days in the Hawks organization.”
Trevor Ariza spurned the Wizards‘ efforts to re-sign him this past summer, but thanks to the addition of Paul Pierce, the surprising play of camp invitee Rasual Butler and improvement from Otto Porter, the Wizards need not have worried, writes Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post.
P.J. Hairston‘s play in the D-League last season gives him an edge that other rookies lack, Hornets coach Steve Clifford said, as Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer writes amid a look at the team’s decision to send Noah Vonleh, this year’s No. 9 overall pick, on D-League assignment. Hairston, the No. 26 pick, spent much of last season in the D-League after the University of North Carolina cut him loose.
The Hawks have recalled Mike Muscala from the D-League, the team announced. The big man posted 15 points and seven rebounds Sunday while on his one-day sojourn to the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, which was his third D-League assignment of the season.

Latest On Danny Ferry, Hawks

November 24th, 2014 at 3:31pm CST by Chuck Myron

Hawks GM Danny Ferry doesn’t believe it’s possible that he’d return to his job under new ownership, sources tell TNT’s David Aldridge, who writes in his Morning Tip column for NBA.com. Ferry has been on an indefinite leave of absence since September, shortly after controlling owner Bruce Levenson announced plans to sell the team that stemmed from a racially insensitive email that he wrote in 2012. The scandal enveloped Ferry when the racially charged remarks he read about Luol Deng during a conference call in June became public.

Completion of a sale is still several months away, Aldridge writes, and that jibes with a report from a month ago that indicated that the sale process was slow-going, with the size of the portion of the team up for sale still unclear. Regardless of who owns the franchise, the chance that Ferry returns at any point to his job is “microscopic,” Aldridge writes, echoing similar verbiage from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports.

Ferry has nonetheless picked up widespread support around the league, with Al Horford the latest to defend the executive’s character, as Aldridge details. Aldridge also heard from Kyle Korver, who reiterated his faith in the Hawks and Ferry. Still, the public pressure is on, and the Rev. Markel Hutchins, an Atlanta civil rights leader who served as the spokesman for a dozen civil rights groups that met with the Hawks earlier this year in the wake of the incident, told Aldridge that he’d be “extremely disappointed” if Ferry returned.

Coach Mike Budenholzer has been serving in a dual role as acting GM since Ferry took his leave, with help, as Aldridge points out, from assistant GM Wes Wilcox and senior adviser Rick Sund, who preceded Ferry as Hawks GM.

Southeast Notes: Heat, Gasol, Ferry, Hairston

October 21st, 2014 at 10:31am CST by Chuck Myron

More NBA players will hit waivers in the next week than at any other time of the year, but the Heat and Wizards are bucking the trend and bringing new players aboard. The Heat signed Larry Drew II on Monday and the Wizards are poised to do the same with John Lucas III. Still, both teams will have to make cuts, too, and it appears Washington already has three players destined for the waiver wire. Here’s more from around the Southeast Division.

Pau Gasol admits that Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade recruited him heavily but says that the Heat‘s situation was too “unclear” at the time he made his decision to sign with the Bulls, notes Ethan J. Skolnick of Bleacher Report (on Twitter).
Danny Ferry seems unlikely to return to the Hawks from his leave of absence, but Jeff Teague is the latest player to come out in support of the embattled GM after Ferry made racially derogatory remarks about Luol Deng, as Sekou Smith of NBA.com chronicles. “Me, knowing Danny, he’s a good dude,” Teague said. “He’s never said or done anything disrespectful like that to me. So when those things came out I didn’t overreact or think he was a racist or anything like that. It’s a mistake that anybody could make. And he’s dealing with it right now. And hopefully, he can come back from it.”
P.J. Hairston is considering switching agents for the second time since becoming a pro, reports Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer (on Twitter). Former UNC-Greensboro player Rodney Blackstock is among those the Hornets‘ rookie is considering, Bonnell adds. Hairston switched to Jonathan Stahler of Upside Media Group after the discovery that his first agent, UMG’s Juan Morrow, wasn’t union-certified.

Charlie Adams contributed to this post.

Danny Ferry Unlikely To Return To Hawks?

October 16th, 2014 at 8:58am CST by Chuck Myron

Hawks GM Danny Ferry is not expected to return to his job from the indefinite leave of absence he took last month, as Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports writes at the end of his full story on Chris Webber‘s bid for an ownership stake in the franchise. Controlling owner Bruce Levensen and his partners are selling what amounts to a 50.1% share of the franchise, and new owners often make changes in their front offices. The racially derogatory remarks about Luol Deng that Ferry read from a scouting report in a June conference call with Hawks owners precipitated his leave of absence and would presumably make Ferry’s job security especially tenuous once a new owner is in place. Still, Wojnarowski’s report is the most significant indication to date that Ferry doesn’t appear long for Atlanta.

Deng has forgiven Ferry for repeating the scouting report’s comments, and several of Ferry’s longtime associates, including former teammate Tim Duncan, have come to his defense. Commissioner Adam Silver has said he believes Ferry is wise to have taken a leave of absence, though he’s also said that he doesn’t believe the executive has committed any offense that would warrant termination. Still others, including Carmelo Anthony, have said that the entirety of the scandal, which germinates from a racially charged email that Levenson sent in 2012, has left them with a negative perception of the Hawks.

Coach Mike Budenholzer is serving as interim GM while CEO Steve Koonin is running the franchise in Levenson’s stead. A report earlier this month indicated that the team is likely to be sold by the end of the year, though another dispatch from later that same day indicated that it was premature to set such a timetable. Webber is part of a group of bidders that includes more significant financial backing from others, though the identity of the primary investors remains unclear, according to Wojnarowski. The former player would like to become a “prominent figure” in the team’s basketball operations, Wojnarowski writes, though it’s unclear just what sort of role he’s targeting and whether he would want Ferry to return as GM. Hawks executive Dominique Wilkins has also expressed a desire to be part of an ownership group for the franchise, though it’s unclear if he still wants that in the wake of his recent promotion within the team’s front office.

Heat Notes: McRoberts, Deng, Haslem

September 26th, 2014 at 8:11pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Heat enter next season without the talents of LeBron James who returned to Cleveland this summer. But Miami isn’t giving up on contending this season, and with a core of Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and Luol Deng, GM Pat Riley hopes his offseason moves will pay off with a return to the playoffs. Here are some notes from Miami’s media day:

Josh McRoberts said that he was drawn to Miami because the team pursued him so hard, Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post tweets. McRoberts also added that the deal now gives him multi-year stability.
In keeping with the theme of being pursued, McRoberts said that he felt wanted in Miami, tweets Joseph Goodman of the Miami Herald. Goodman wasn’t sure if the statement by McRoberts was a dig at the Hornets, his former team, but he believes it was notable given the context.
When asked about sacrificing money for the sake of the team’s cap flexibility, Udonis Haslem said, “I never had that money. It was never in my bank account. It’s not about that. I don’t regret it,” Lieser tweets.
The Pacers tried to entice Danny Granger to return this offseason, tweets Lieser, but Granger said, “It didn’t work out.”
Deng told Lieser that he forgives Danny Ferry for the comments that he made (Twitter link). “It’s not something I want to hold onto… I believe he’s really sorry for what he said,” Deng relayed.
Deng also said that he believes Ferry’s remorse is genuine, and added, “I do not think Danny is racist,” tweets Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald.
The veteran small forward said that he was actually close to signing with the Hawks, notes Jackson (Twitter link). Deng also noted that Ferry should have read the offensive comments allegedly contained in the scouting report to himself before saying them out loud.
Deng confirmed to Lieser that he was close to joining Atlanta and that he never got any sense of prejudice from them. Deng also said that he was totally surprised by what he heard when the story was made public, Lieser notes.

Southeast Notes: LeBron, Bosh, Hornets

September 25th, 2014 at 9:00pm CST by Eddie Scarito

LeBron James says it would have been more difficult for him to leave the Heat if they’d beaten the Spurs in the Finals this year and that he hadn’t envisioned returning to play in Cleveland until the end of his career. James made his comments to CNN’s Rachel Nichols, who released a preview of the full interview, which airs Friday (video link).

Here’s more from the Southeast Division:

With LeBron gone Chris Bosh will become the focal point of the Heat‘s offense, something the player is greatly looking forward to, Jared Zwerling of Bleacher Report writes. Bosh’s former coach Sam Mitchell believes his former player will answer the bell, saying “Pat Riley gave him the contract that said, ‘You’re going to be the guy. People think Chris is not that guy. When the offense is running through him, they’re going to find out, I guarantee you. One of those Big Three in Miami had to take a backseat and check his ego at the door. If Chris hadn’t done it, they may not have two championships. Now, I think Chris is going to play even better than he did in Toronto. I really do, because now he has something to prove all over again.”
Hornets GM Rich Cho said there have been some initial discussions between the franchise and Kemba Walker about a possible extension, Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer reports (Twitter link). Walker can become a restricted free agent next summer.
The Wizards enter the new season with higher expectations than usual, Joseph White of USA Today writes. Coach Randy Wittman embraces the pressure that comes with those expectations, saying, “Listen, as a coach, you want to have these expectations. I’d much rather be sitting here talking about high expectations than you so-called experts thinking we might win 15-16 games. Last year doesn’t mean nothing. Last year we’ve got to use. Are we going to use it as a stepping stone to this year? When I say we’re back to ground zero, everybody’s 0-0 right now.”
Embattled Hawks GM Danny Ferry is slowly gathering supporters around the league, Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes. But this support may not ultimately help Ferry keep his job, notes Vivlamore, and the executive’s fate most likely rests with whomever the new controlling owner of the franchise is.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Eastern Notes: Ferry, Antetokounmpo, Raptors

September 24th, 2014 at 7:27pm CST by Eddie Scarito

With the racism scandal still fresh in Atlanta, Hawks GM Danny Ferry‘s former teammate Tim Duncan came to his defense, Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News writes. Duncan acknowledged during a radio interview that Ferry made a mistake in his comments regarding Luol Deng, but denied Ferry had an issue with race. Duncan said, “Knowing Danny, he’s not what everybody’s saying about him. He’s not a racist.”

Here’s more from the east:

Bucks second-year player Giannis Antetokounmpo is embracing the team’s experiment of moving him to point guard, Alex Kennedy of Basketball Insiders writes. On Milwaukee asking him to change positions, Antetokounmpo said, “I’m not going to say I was shocked by it. It’s something that I feel comfortable with and I’ll play wherever Coach wants me to play, especially when it’s Coach Kidd who thinks that I can play point guard. That makes me feel like, ‘I can play it. I can play point guard.’ I’m going to try my best and just listen to Coach. I’ll do whatever Coach says to do and I’ll get more comfortable.”
During an interview with Reggie Miller regarding injured Pacers swingman Paul George, team president Larry Bird said that despite his star player’s horrific injury, he would still like George to return to Team USA, Candace Buckner of the Indianapolis Star relays. “I hope so. That’s one of his goals,” Bird said. “He wants to play for Team USA. I think that any kid that gets the opportunity to do that and they want to play for their country, they should have that opportunity. And I think Paul will be there in Brazil (Olympics).”
In their season preview the staff at HoopsHype predict that the Raptors will repeat as champs in the Atlantic Division.
Despite last season ending with his potential game-winning shot being blocked by Paul Pierce in the playoffs, the Raptors‘ Kyle Lowry showed significant growth on and off the court, writes Jonathan Abrams of Grantland in his profile of the player and his career.

Hawks Notes: Silver, Ferry, Owners

September 22nd, 2014 at 4:45pm CST by Chuck Myron

It’s been more than two weeks since Hawks controlling owner Bruce Levenson announced his intention to sell his stake in the club stemming from an investigation that uncovered an email with racially charged statements that he’d written in 2012. GM Danny Ferry helped defuse the controversy when he agreed to take an indefinite leave of absence after his own racist statements became public, but the leadership of the Hawks remains in limbo. Here’s the latest:

A sitting NBA owner told Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the Hawks will move to a new city “over my dead body,” casting further doubt on the notion that a new principal owner will move the franchise. Commissioner Adam Silver will meet Friday with Atlanta mayor Kasim Reed to discuss the state of Hawks ownership, as Vivlamore reports in the same piece.
Silver said today that he thought Ferry was wise to take his indefinite leave of absence, as Chris Herring of The Wall Street Journal tweets. Silver said earlier this month that he doesn’t think Ferry committed any offense that should prompt the team to fire him.
Vivlamore’s piece also provides a breakdown of the Hawks ownership shares. Levenson owns 24% of the team, but his share combined with those of Ed Peskowitz and Todd Foreman total 50.1%, and all three are selling. Michael Gearon Sr. and Michael Gearon Jr. own approximately 42% of the team combined, while the rest of the club is in the hands of Rutherford Seydel, Beau Turner and a New York-based investment group that includes Steven Price.

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.

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.

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