The Hawks on Saturday "sent a letter" signed by CEO Steve Koonin apologizing for racially charged comments by GM Danny Ferry and outgoing Managing Partner Bruce Levenson, according to Chris Vivlamore of the ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION. The letter was e-mailed "to those on the team's mailing list" and published on the team's website. Koonin wrote, "To be clear, I am angry that this has happened. I am deeply saddened and embarrassed that this has put a blemish on our team and our city, which has always been a diverse community with a history of coming together as one. We should build bridges through basketball, not divide our community and serve as a source of pain." Read the full letter here (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 9/14). Meanwhile, Levenson "sent emails to supporters who have reached out to him during the recent controversy that has led him to sell his share of the team." Levenson wrote, "I am sending this email to the 2,478 people who sent me kind emails in the past week" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 9/13).
HITTING ROCK BOTTOM: The JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION's Vivlamore wrote under the header, "Current Discord In Hawks Ownership Has Deep Roots." The Atlanta Spirit ownership group's in-fighting "came to a head" with this current controversy, "the worst issue to rock the franchise." It "paints a clearer picture of the deep turmoil within the ownership group." The "current back-and-forth represents yet another low point for the Atlanta Spirit" (ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION, 9/13). Knicks F Carmelo Anthony said that the comments uncovered in the recent investigation of the Hawks "will impact the way free agents look at the franchise now and moving forward." Anthony: "(There) ain’t nobody (who) would want to go there. ... I think it puts Atlanta back even further now, from that standpoint." He added, "I’m speaking on behalf of all athletes. We would never look at a situation like that, I don’t care what it is" (N.Y. POST, 9/14). Former NBPA Exec Dir Charles Grantham said, "If your chief marketing officer of the Atlanta Hawks was black, you think we’d be reading about this? No." He added, "If (Levenson) had been talking in a room and three of the executives in there were black, then you would have a totally different conversation. It would not have come out as distasteful as it came out because somebody would have said, 'You can’t say that.'" Grantham: "When you have an entire white ownership without anyone in that room giving a different opinion, this is what you come up with" (BOSTON GLOBE, 9/14).
THE MAN-HUNT IS ON: ESPN.com's J.A. Adande wrote there "needs to be simultaneous explanation from the NBA about why it has not vigorously pursued and identified the original source of the disparaging remarks" by Ferry about Heat F Luol Deng based on Deng's ethnicity and "purged that person from the league." Until that happens -- "indeed, the fact that it has already taken so long for this to happen -- the implication is that there's a place in the NBA for those thoughts" (ESPN.com, 9/12).
NEW HEAD HAWK? In N.Y., Richard Johnson cited sources as saying The Davis Firm Founder & Principal Doug Davis -- the son of music mogul Clive Davis -- "is a leading contender to purchase" the Hawks. He is "assembling an owners group comprised of music and entertainment executives, artists and celebrities, several of whom have ties to the Atlanta area" (N.Y. POST, 9/13).
