During a Blazers win over the Spurs in 2002, Bonzi Wells spat on Danny Ferry and was suspended for a game because of the incident. At the time, it was just another in a long line of tempestuous on-court Bonzi moments, but after recent evidence of Ferry’s racially-charged invective directed at Luol Deng during a conference call with minority owners , the event may illuminate even more about Ferry’s record with race.

After the game where Wells spit on Ferry, Bonzi told the Sacramento Bee‘s Martin McNeil (it’s no longer online) by way of Can’t Stop The Bleeding (H/T Tom Ziller at SB Nation) that Ferry had dropped the n-word during their on-court back-and-forth:

Then there was an incident while with the Blazers when Wells spit on Ferry, now the Cleveland Cavaliers’ president of basketball operations. Wells’ agent, William Phillips said part of that story always gets omitted. “Ferry (allegedly) called him a (racist name),” Phillips said. “That part of it never gets reported. And Ferry becomes the president of basketball operations. Ferry did not return a phone call to The Bee.

McNeil, who no longer works for the Bee, sent out a pair of tweets about the Bonzi/Ferry story when the Deng comments came out. Also, it should be noted that McNeil almost never tweets, so it was obvious he wanted to put this on the record:

Ferry then called after the story ran and denied using the word to Wells. That's what comes to mind when I hear about this Hawks situation — Marty Mac (@MartyMacsWorld) September 9, 2014

Don't know that I trust Danny Ferry. I remember quoting Bonzi Wells saying Ferry called him the 'N-word'. Ferry didn't t return a phone call — Marty Mac (@MartyMacsWorld) September 9, 2014

Wells, for his part, has his own history with race and on-court trash talk.

Kerry Eggers of the Portland Tribune (by way of PBT) wrote about his history of using demeaning language for white people on the court: