Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry has taken a leave of absence in the wake of racial comments made in a conference call with team owners in regards to veteran forward Luol Deng.
“This afternoon, Danny Ferry requested, and I have approved, taking an indefinite leave of absence, effective immediately,” Hawks CEO Steve Koonin said in a statement Friday.
Koonin has resisted calls that Ferry be fired but says, “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.”
Head coach Mike Budenholzer will assume oversight of the basketball operations department during Ferry’s absence.
The GM made inflammatory comments about Deng in a conference call with Hawks owners on June 6, as the team was deciding whether to pursue the free agent. Ferry described Deng as someone who “has a little African in him” and could be disruptive in the locker room.
Audio of the call, which was obtained by ESPN’s Darren Rovell and other media outlets, is part of the controversy currently surrounding the team. The call led co-owner Michael Gearon to send a letter to controlling partner Bruce Levenson asking him to fire Ferry or make him resign.
An internal investigation into Ferry’s comments uncovered an unrelated email sent two years ago by Levenson, who theorized that black fans were keeping suburban white fans from attending games.
Levenson said he was embarrassed by what he called an ill-advised attempt to improve the team’s attendance and that he intends to sell his share of the team.
“While the issues related to race are deeply troubling, at the heart of this dispute is an unfortunate disagreement amongst owners,” Koonin continued in the statement. “That said, we have taken several steps to address what we can do as an organization to be better and stronger.”
Among those steps, Koonin said the Hawks would hire a chief diversity officer and continue to meet with community leaders.
Ferry said he was “repeating comments that were gathered from numerous sources during background conversations and scouting different players,” and that he repeated those comments in the call during a discussion of free agents.
Ferry, however, did not say during the call that he was reading from background reports.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Wednesday said Ferry should keep his job and said he believed the words Ferry used were not his own. Former NBA great Magic Johnson is among those who have called on Ferry to step down.