Hawks GM Danny Ferry audio on Luol Deng emerges

The Atlanta Hawks are embroiled in their own scandal, starting with the owner selling the team because of a racially insensitive e-mail he sent in 2012. Now Hawks general manager Danny Ferry is in trouble for making racially insensitive comments about Luol Deng during a conference call with ownership.

“He has a little African in him,” Ferry said. “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].”

Those words alone are hard enough to read, but now thanks to Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, we can hear Ferry make those remarks.

Ferry has denied that those comments were his and said he was repeating other’s comments.

“In regards to the insensitive remarks that were used during our due diligence process, I was repeating comments that were gathered from numerous sources during background conversations and scouting about different players,” Ferry said, via the team’s official release. “I repeated those comments during a telephone conversation reviewing the draft and free agency process. Those words do not reflect my views, or words that I would use to describe an individual and I certainly regret it. I apologize to those I offended and to Luol, who I reached out to Monday morning.”