Hawks owner Bruce Levenson will sell his stake in the after admitting to a racially charged email, but the situation now appears more complicated.
The Atlanta Hawks have likely alienated their own players and their fans. Owner Bruce Levenson decided to sell his share in the team after admitting to a racially charged email, but the issue goes deeper than one man. A lot has been learned since the news broke on Sunday about how the Hawks came upon Levenson's email from 2012, and league-wide, there is concern as an issue of privacy has been unearthed.
How did the Hawks come across the email?: The Atlanta Constitution Journal reported that the issue of racism came up in June. General manager Danny Ferry was discussing free agency and in reading over a background report of a player failed to edit out a racist remark. ESPN first reported that player mentioned by Ferry was Miami Heat forward Luol Deng. The Hawks, upset over Ferry's unedited comments, decided to conduct an investigation led by a law firm, which recorded 19 interviews and scanned 24,000 documents, one of which was Levenson's email.
Will Ferry be punished?: Ferry will be punished but the team has kept the details private.
What does this mean for the league?: The first whispers of the scandal spread fear across the NBA as owners worried about whether they had crossed the line in the past, according to Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski. Could their ownership be at risk?
People are interested in buying the Hawks, say the Hawks: CEO Steve Koonin will take over running the operations of the franchise following Levenson's decision to step aside. He told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that he's already received more than seven phone calls from 'multi-billionaires' that have interest in buying a share of the franchise.
The players are not happy: Koonin met with the Hawks players to discuss the matter on Sunday night and told CNN that it was like 'walking into a funeral.'
Follow along: Visit Peachtree Hoops for updates on the Levenson situation.
A different opinion: While many are quick to throw Levenson into the same category as exiled former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar believes that there's not much wrong with Levenson touching on race in order to help improve his business, even if there are stereotypes involved. Abdul-Jabbar says Levenson's worst crime is 'misguided white guilt.'
The thing that makes me mad is that Levenson was too quick to rend his clothing and shout
mea culpa. In his apology, he wrote: 'By focusing on race, I also sent the unintentional and hurtful message that our white fans are more valuable than our black fans.' But that's not the message in the email at all. If the seats had all been filled, even if all by blacks, the email wouldn't have been written. He wasn't valuing white fans over blacks, he was trying to figure out a way to change what he thought was the white perception in Atlanta so he could sell more tickets. That's his job.
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