FILE - In this July 10, 2013, file photo, Atlanta Hawks general manager Danny Ferry speaks at a press conference in Atlanta. Ferry has been disciplined by CEO Steve Koonin for making racially charged comments about Luol Deng when the team pursued the free agent this year. Ferry apologized Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014, for "repeating comments that were gathered from numerous sources" about Deng. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

All the way until his final statement of goodbye, Danny Ferry still refers to the belittling African diatribe on Luol Deng as belonging to someone else. On his way to a so-called leave of absence, he still insisted "these were not my words…" They were Ferry's words. They belonged to him because they belonged to the Atlanta Hawks.

They belonged to him because they belonged to a culture within the Atlanta Hawks where one of his underlings didn't think twice about inputting them into the Hawks' database. That person didn't fear the general manager's response. The words belonged to Ferry because no one else studying and re-studying the Deng intelligence report – a player with whom they would offer a $10 million-a-year contract – thought it necessary to delete from the file.

They belonged to Ferry because he climbed onto a conference call with ownership and was so lazy that day, so devoid of an original thought of his own, that he went out of his way to describe the shortcomings of Deng in a way that never should've been part of a private conversation – never mind a corporate one.

This is why Ferry's "leave of absence" will almost assuredly turn into a permanent departure. This is a job of judgment and Ferry's turned out to be inexcusable.

"I still wonder why in the hell he would ever paraphrase that back to ownership," one NBA general manager said. "…Maybe just say, "Potential character issues have turned up but I would still recommend we sign him for up to 'X' million. I can't believe someone would ever repeat that or go into detail like that for an ownership level meeting."

View photos Luol Deng was traded to the Cavs by the Bulls last season. (AP) More

There were a thousand ways for Ferry to handle this, but the easiest, most convenient turned out to be leaning upon a racist African stereotype that should've stopped him cold. It doesn't matter whether he laid eyes on that report before the call or not, because it still goes back to this: Something about the environment in Atlanta made it all right to send that up the line to Ferry, and for good reason – it was all right with him.

Everyone wants to know: In the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's published scouting report on Deng, who was the redacted Cleveland source responsible for the initial African slurs? If this wasn't Chris Grant – the deposed Cleveland GM who replaced Ferry with the Cavaliers – it will be difficult for him to convince people otherwise. And that's a brutally vulnerable position for Ferry to have left him.

It's unfair to Grant and former Cavs coach Mike Brown, another close friend of Ferry's. The report says the interview took place on June 6, 2014 – months after each was let go in Cleveland.

Who else would know that Herb Rudoy, one of Deng's agents, wanted $12 million a year? Who else could speak with such authority about the trade negotiations with Chicago, about the rest of the teams interested in Deng at the deadline, about how the redacted coaches felt about Deng's performance in the final line of the report? All those things point to Grant, but that doesn't mean it's him. That doesn't mean the redacted use of "the former" fill-in-the-blank official was legitimate.

It could've been a misdirection play by the Hawks in the report. Who knows now? The bottom line is this: Everyone else is a suspect because Ferry wanted it this way to spare himself.

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