National Basketball Association

Civil rights leader, former Atlanta mayor: Danny Ferry should return to Hawks

Published Feb. 18, 2015 12:16 p.m. ET

foxsports

Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry has been on an indefinite leave of absence since making racially insensitive comments this past offseason about current Miami Heat forward Luol Deng. Ferry made the comments while on a conference call discussing the possibility of the Hawks signing Deng as a free agent.

Yes, Deng has forgiven Ferry for the comments, which Ferry reportedly repeated from a scouting report. But the remarks continue to hang over Ferry, and his future with the Hawks organization remains in doubt.

Yet one prominent Atlanta civil rights leader is speaking out in support of Ferry.

Former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young does not believe Danny Ferry is a racist and that he should return to his job as Hawks general manager.

Young, the civil rights leader, pastor, former Georgia congressman and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, said if he were running the Hawks, Ferry, the team’s embattled general manager, would have never left the organization.

“Hell, no,” Young said when asked whether Ferry should lose his job. “We’ve got a good team, we’ve got a good general manager. We just need to get a unified ownership and I hope that ownership is grounded in Atlanta.”
(Read more at AJC.com)