Danny Ferry is not blameless. He admits as much. He read words aloud that he shouldn’t have. Thus did he hand those Hawks owners who hated him a lever that, after a nine-month leave of absence, wedged him from a job he’d filled more ably than any man who’d ever held it.
Among his exit papers, Ferry has a letter from Bernard Taylor of Alston & Bird proclaiming that the law firm’s exhaustive investigation found him innocent of being a racist. “Bernard’s report was important to me,” Ferry said Monday afternoon. “I’m glad it was part of the dialogue here and part of the thoughts. People can make their own decisions about me.”
Printed exoneration in hand, Ferry should be first in line for every NBA team in need of a general manager. But here’s where a demonstrably smart guy can learn from experience: Next time around, he could stand to be a bit nicer.
No one of sound mind can dispute that Ferry worked wonders here. He dumped the awful contracts he’d inherited and replaced those players with cheaper but better-fitting versions. Three years in, Ferry’s Hawks won more games than any team in franchise history.
There is, however, a brusqueness about Ferry. It rankled Dominique Wilkins, who felt Ferry marginalized his presence in a front office where he maintained the title of vice president for basketball. Ferry also rankled the Gearons, the father-and-son co-owners who weren’t integral parts of the decision to hire Ferry and whom the new GM took no pains to placate.
Ferry figured he answered to Bruce Levenson, the co-owner who’d hired him. If history teaches us anything, it’s that any member of the group once regrettably known as Atlanta Spirit LLC could be a royal pain. These owners wound up suing one another because Steve Belkin balked at trading two draft picks for Joe Johnson.
The photo of then-GM Billy Knight refusing Belkin’s outstretched hand in a Boston courtroom became our enduring image of this chaotic crew. Then the audiotape of Ferry characterizing Luol Deng on a conference call as having “some African in him” surfaced, giving us sound to accompany the vision.
After Ferry’s comment, a voice on the tape can be heard mentioning the toxic Donald Sterling and saying, “Tape this (stuff) … It’s going to be on TMZ tonight.” That voice was Gearon Jr.’s. Those words don’t resound with righteous indignation. Indeed, someone in the room with Gearon can be heard laughing.
Those four words — “some African in him” — led to the undoing of Ferry as GM and the sale of the Hawks. Gearon Jr. has said he pushed to look for racially tinged material bearing the Hawks imprint because he finds racism abhorrent. A skeptic might suggest he saw it as a way to impeach a successful GM he didn’t hire and didn’t like.
Ferry once cut Gearon Sr. short by asking him to get to the point. I can sympathize: The Gearons ramble to beat the band. But as clever and driven (and apparently impatient) as Ferry is, he was nonetheless an employee. It’s bad politics to tick off the people paying your salary.
The objectionable Levenson email would never have come to light if not for Ferry’s four spoken/read words on a conference call. If not for the Levenson email, Ferry’s sponsor would have stayed in place and been able to fight his corner. As it was, the storm over Ferry was reduced to dueling leaks and lousy PR — and nothing from the man himself.
At noon Monday, the moment the buyout was announced, a Ferry Q&A with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution was posted: Those marked his first public comments since a written statement issued Sept. 12,2014, the day he took his leave of absence. Now he’s just leaving, which is a shame: The Hawks won’t ever find a better GM.
But, in a way nobody could have foreseen, it’s also kind of good: Without the Levenson email, these owners would have blundered on. When the sale to Antony Ressler’s group is finalized Wednesday, the Gearons will be allowed to keep only a minuscule piece of the franchise. They got rid of Ferry but rendered themselves negligible. If you’re a Hawks fan, you’ll take that trade.
