The Hawks never had a chance to get Anthony, but free agent
Luol Deng had been a distinct possibility. Eventually, the Hawks made two offers to Deng – two years, $20 million, or one year, $10 million – league sources told Yahoo Sports. Around the discussions between the Hawks and Deng, several sources told Yahoo that within the basketball operations, Ferry was Atlanta's biggest proponent to sign Deng.
Ferry never did persuade Deng to take the offer, and yet still he'll forever be connected to him. Once he started talking on the call about Deng, it wasn't long before Ferry marched himself directly into a foolish, ignorant riff of African stereotypes. On and on, Ferry started about how Deng "has got some African in him" and proceeded to make a comparison to Africans with phony facades selling counterfeit goods.
As soon as those words left Ferry's mouth on the call, Gearon responded in a dramatic way in the background of the tape recording, according to a partial transcript of the call obtained by Yahoo Sports.
"Oh my God, that comment sounds like Sterling on TMZ," Gearon said.
Gearon didn't stop Ferry. He let him keep talking. In the transcript, Ferry detailed the information he'd gathered on Deng. Ferry attributes those characterizations – and inappropriate phrasing – to outside sources.
On Deng, Ferry said: "… 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]."
Ferry kept going on Deng: "… Good guy in Chicago. They will tell you he was good for their culture, but not a culture setter. He played hard and all those things, but he was very worried about his bobble-head being the last one given away that year, or there was not enough stuff of him in the [team] store … kind of a complex guy."
Ferry's clinging to the story that the racially charged words belonged to someone else – that a riff connecting Africans to a con man stereotype weren't his words at all. In context of the transcripts, it appears that those had been Ferry's own interjections on the call, somehow supporting the intel culled outside of the Hawks.
