New Orleans Pelicans to bring Danny Ferry into front office

The New Orleans Pelicans have hired former Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry in a special advisor role to aid Pelicans general manager Dell Demps.

According to ESPN’s Marc J. Spears, the New Orleans Pelicans will hire former Atlanta Hawks and Cleveland Cavaliers general manager Danny Ferry in a special advisory role to current general manager Dell Demps.

This will be Ferry’s first job in the NBA since having to resign in disgrace from his gig with the Hawks. Ferry was part of a racially insensitive email chain with former majority owner Bruce Levenson about African-Americans and NBA small forward Luol Deng.

Those remarks ultimately cost Ferry his job in Atlanta and forced Levenson’s ownership group to sell the on-the-rise basketball club to new majority owner Tony Ressler last summer.

After two NBA seasons out of the spotlight, it seems that New Orleans is willing to take a chance on the outcast former general manager because frankly, the Pelicans have done a lousy job in surrounding All-Star power forward Anthony Davis with quality players.

New Orleans stumbled immediately out of the gate in 2015-16 and could not get back into the Western Conference playoff picture after making it the year before as the No. 8 seed. Apparently Demps realizes that Ferry can help him make the Pelicans into a contending franchise with Davis as the franchise centerpiece.

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Given that the Pelicans play in arguably the most competitive division in the NBA in the Southwest Division and the tougher of the two conferences in the Western Conference, both Demps and Ferry will have more than their hands full trying to put together a roster that can simply hang with the good teams in the West. The New Orleans job will be Ferry’s toughest NBA gig to date.

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