Woj: Danny Ferry's fatal mistake: He never owned his comments

[kerrypack]

stupid article.  ferry's "fatal" mistake is not distancing himself from the comments enough when he made them.  he did say "the rap on deng is", which says that he was giving what someone else was saying about him, but he wasn't clear enough obviously.

[Guest]

I still don't understand why the heat isn't on the Cavs organization and the person in their front office who actually typed those words.

Oh no, we can't disturb the King and his decision to go back home. It would shake up the NBA order set by Adam Silver and we can't have that.

I hope the stink comes our and we call out the Cavs scout and take a $hit on Silver, the Cavs, Lebron and whoever else is the glamour poster boys of the NBA. If Stern's name could be crapped on as well, that would be excellent.

[JTB]

That's what is bugging me about our fans here. Koonin punished Ferry BEYOND what the league recommended and you know what? That's good for me. If knew and damning evidence came out or comes out then revisit this but with what we know so far, I'm good with whatever his punishment was. But the people here who want him fired just want to line up and cast stones at him, regardless of whether it's deserved or not.

Bottom line, nobody here that I know of at least wants Ferry to get off scott free or with a slap on the wrist. But some of you will have to get past not knowing what that punishment actually is.

Is this effecting nba players is the question...if I'm a owner or CEO like Koonin I honestly could care less wheather ferry is treated right or not because I'm trying to run a business and build a franchise!...that may sound cold blooded but ferry can go find another job somewhere else.

At the end of the day Koonin has too look at ferry and say ok...after all this mess are you able to get us free agents (avg-good), are you able to sign our own players back, and can you we continue to build with your name circled around our franchise?

I'm not trying to be an ass but I've been saying this the past week since this has all come up and my main point hasn't changed and that is this....HOW DO OTHER NBA PLAYERS FEEL ABOUT FERRY?....don't care about ferry being treated right at this point I just care about other nba players thoughts cause his job revolves around them as far as if he can do his job at a high level or not.

If nba players are ok with ferry after all this than fine, he stays our gm no prob BUT if players start to speak out how they aren't too happy with the guy, ferry needs to go!

You and @JayBirdHawk are worried about ferry being treated right....all I care about is what nba players think of ferry and if ferry can do his job at an avg level or not!

[Guest]

You and @JayBirdHawk are worried about ferry being treated right....all I care about is what nba players think of ferry and if ferry can do his job at an avg level or not!

Excuse me? Where have I ever said ANYTHING about treating Ferry RIGHT?

From the start I waited for 2 things before making any snap judgements unlike some people: The audio and the scouting report.

I've responded to and asked 'What did Ferry lie about for those who said he did? And also about Koonin not holding DF's feet to the fire to which I responded 'Koonin did punish him above what was recommended.'

I've said that what Ferry was racially insensitive, irresponsible and sad.

I've waited for the Hawks players to respond - they know and have to deal with Ferry. I'll take my que from them.

Fire Ferry, don't fire Ferry - I'm not gonna be butt hurt either way.

I'm getting tickets for Opening night and I'm going to enjoy watching these Hawks players.

And with that I'm done - GO HAWKS!

[Admin]

Excuse me? Where have I ever said ANYTHING about treating Ferry RIGHT?

From the start I waited for 2 things before making any snap judgements unlike some people: The audio and the scouting report.

I've responded to and asked 'What did Ferry lie about for those who said he did? And also about Koonin not holding DF's feet to the fire to which I responded 'Koonin did punish him above what was recommended.'

I've said that what Ferry was racially insensitive, irresponsible and sad.

I've waited for the Hawks players to respond - they know and have to deal with Ferry. I'll take my que from them.

Fire Ferry, don't fire Ferry - I'm not gonna be butt hurt either way.

I'm getting tickets for Opening night and I'm going to enjoy watching these Hawks players.

And with that I'm done - GO HAWKS!

 

This ^^^

 

Do I want Ferry to be fired, hell no. But not because I give a damn what happens to Ferry. I care about the Hawks and I think he's the best GM we've had in my lifetime and I've been around long enough to know that good GMs don't grow on trees. 

 

I'll just caution you fire Ferry folks that the grass isn't always greener. Sometimes it's just a nasty mud pit under a thick patch of green weeds. 

[AHF]

stupid article.  ferry's "fatal" mistake is not distancing himself from the comments enough when he made them.  he did say "the rap on deng is", which says that he was giving what someone else was saying about him, but he wasn't clear enough obviously.

 

The biggest mistake was putting worthless, inflammatory crap like that in his report to the owners in the first place.  If he recognized the need to distance himself from it (which I agree he should have), he would have edited it out from what he shared with the owners.

[kerrypack]

The biggest mistake was putting worthless, inflammatory crap like that in his report to the owners in the first place.  If he recognized the need to distance himself from it (which I agree he should have), he would have edited it out from what he shared with the owners.

owners didn't see the report.  his fatal mistake, if it is fatal, is that he expressed an opinion and it sounded like it was his.  he obviously didn't see a racially insensitive comment as being inappropriate, and he repeated it.  he should have said it was inappropriate and not repeated it.

 

he could have expressed the opinion in a way that he mentions that a former coach or gm of his has very harsh feelings against deng and stated why; personally, i would have removed anything inappropriate in the final explanation and given the caveat that soandso currently has harsh and emotional feelings because they likely feel that deng helped get them fired.

[AHF]

owners didn't see the report.  his fatal mistake, if it is fatal, is that he expressed an opinion and it sounded like it was his.  he obviously didn't see a racially insensitive comment as being inappropriate, and he repeated it.  he should have said it was inappropriate and not repeated it.

 

he could have expressed the opinion in a way that he mentions that a former coach or gm of his has very harsh feelings against deng and stated why; personally, i would have removed anything inappropriate in the final explanation and given the caveat that soandso currently has harsh and emotional feelings because they likely feel that deng helped get them fired.

The report I am talking about is his notes to orally review with the owners. The scouting report is like 6 pages long and he locked in on the ugly part of it to share with the owners. He should never had thought that important enough to share. Thus, it wasn't the failure to distance himself - it was the decision to run with that at all.

[Admin]

The report I am talking about is his notes to orally review with the owners. The scouting report is like 6 pages long and he locked in on the ugly part of it to share with the owners. He should never had thought that important enough to share. Thus, it wasn't the failure to distance himself - it was the decision to run with that at all.

#1. How do you know he had this particular report in advance of this meeting?

#2. How do you know he had actual notes written and wasn't paraphrasing off the cuff, as to me that's what it sounds like he was doing.

#3. How do you know he locked in on this? This could easily be a 2 minute part of a 10 minute talk about Deng and we are only hearing the bad part. I find it hard to believe he locked in on this and didn't lost any positives and the takeaway was to offer Deng 10 million per. That's just not the type of argument you make while trying to get money from your bosses.

Seems like a lot of assumptions are being made in order to condemn Ferry here by many of you.

[AHF]

#1. How do you know he had this particular report in advance of this meeting?

#2. How do you know he had actual notes written and wasn't paraphrasing off the cuff, as to me that's what it sounds like he was doing.

#3. How do you know he locked in on this? This could easily be a 2 minute part of a 10 minute talk about Deng and we are only hearing the bad part. I find it hard to believe he locked in on this and didn't lost any positives and the takeaway was to offer Deng 10 million per. That's just not the type of argument you make while trying to get money from your bosses.

Seems like a lot of assumptions are being made in order to condemn Ferry here by many of you.

1&2 are my assumptions because I assume he isn't incompetent. If he did either of those, there is a competency issue followed by a judgment issue when he failed to distance himself.

3 I don't use locked in to me that this was all he discussed. In fact, I assume most of what he had to say on Deng was positive and that Gearon strategically leaked only the most damaging stuff. I can't explain why the ASG didn't release the positive stuff for better context. That said, there is no way he read through the entire report and just reacted to it on the fly. He had to have researched Deng pretty thoroughly and have a developed view of his recommendation for a guy he was recommending ownership invest at least 10M per season. That section was material to him and that is why he locked into it, relayed it to the owners and then expounded on it in his own comments that echoed the report's criticism of Deng.

[Admin]

1&2 are my assumptions because I assume he isn't incompetent. If he did either of those, there is a competency issue followed by a judgment issue when he failed to distance himself.

3 I don't use locked in to me that this was all he discussed. In fact, I assume most of what he had to say on Deng was positive and that Gearon strategically leaked only the most damaging stuff. I can't explain why the ASG didn't release the positive stuff for better context. That said, there is no way he read through the entire report and just reacted to it on the fly. He had to have researched Deng pretty thoroughly and have a developed view of his recommendation for a guy he was recommending ownership invest at least 10M per season. That section was material to him and that is why he locked into it, relayed it to the owners and then expounded on it in his own comments that echoed the report's criticism of Deng.

Or maybe 1&2 are timing and trust issues? Like he trusted his minion who got the report to either scrub it or get it to him earlier. I mean seriously go back and listen to the tape, it sure sounds like this is his first time reading it. You can say that's incompetency all you want but maybe he felt this meeting was BS and that it didn't really matter. Who expects their boss to record the call? Did he make a mistake by reading the bad stuff and paraphrasing, yes. But I'm assuming he did so out if trying to give all the owners by he full report on him.

I'm sure he already knew what he needed to know on Deng, which is why he didn't put more time into reading this report beforehand. So yeah if this was his first time reading this report, he absolutely would have been reacting to it on the fly.

[AHF]

We'll agree to disagree. Sloppy, sloppy work by him in a best case scenario. I don't think he is that sloppy.

[OldTimeHawk]

I agree with you! Not sure why many hawk fans just want ferry to get away with this as if it's nothing......we may not have to fire him but I want some kind of feet to the fire punishment. Koonin need to set high expectations and make ferry work his ass off this season if he stays.

The only reason I would want ferry out is if nba players start to feel he should go because at the end of the day it's all about them and their opinions really

no actually its about the fans

[OldTimeHawk]

Oh no, we can't disturb the King and his decision to go back home. It would shake up the NBA order set by Adam Silver and we can't have that.

I hope the stink comes our and we call out the Cavs scout and take a $hit on Silver, the Cavs, Lebron and whoever else is the glamour poster boys of the NBA. If Stern's name could be crapped on as well, that would be excellent.

Yeah I wonder when the Cavs organization gets investigated  and folks get to sift through every email and decide to put their spin and context on every syllable ?? I would love to read their  rap sheet on Labron !

[kerrypack]

The report I am talking about is his notes to orally review with the owners. The scouting report is like 6 pages long and he locked in on the ugly part of it to share with the owners. He should never had thought that important enough to share. Thus, it wasn't the failure to distance himself - it was the decision to run with that at all.

have you ever interviewed and hired people?  have you ever worked in the real world?  if you get a negative review, it carries weight, more weight than a positive review.  almost nobody will give a negative review, because it comes back to haunt you.  he could have said "the rap on deng is that he is two faced, etc, some former employers have very strong feelings to the point of making slurs against him", re-interpreted and expressed the relevant implications and avoided the defamatory comments.  it might be true, you know.  you're saying that one should avoid looking at anything negative?

 

I have gotten reviews on people where the person was slammed; never hired any of them.

[AHF]

have you ever interviewed and hired people?  have you ever worked in the real world?  if you get a negative review, it carries weight, more weight than a positive review.  almost nobody will give a negative review, because it comes back to haunt you.  he could have said "the rap on deng is that he is two faced, etc, some former employers have very strong feelings to the point of making slurs against him", re-interpreted and expressed the relevant implications and avoided the defamatory comments.  it might be true, you know.  you're saying that one should avoid looking at anything negative?

 

I have gotten reviews on people where the person was slammed; never hired any of them.

I do work in the real world and manage hr processes. I am not saying you should avoid the negative. You should absolutely know enough to screen out a comment with overt racial connotations in a hiring situation. If someone came to me and said, "you shouldn't recommend hiring this engineer because he is too ghetto" I would never repeat that to my boss. I would ask them what they mean and distill it down until I understood if there were legit issues or not. After dealing with the employee who made that recommendation on why that isn't ever ok, I would distill any legit points into my recommendation (did he dress unprofessionally; etc.) and leave the racially loaded garbage out.

Ferry should have done this by simply relaying that Deng has been reported to be a lockeroom lawyer and that he has gone behind his coach's backs to undermine the team as an unidentified source to the media. Addressing that concern by saying he "has a little African in him" is way outside good hr practices.

I also look at the due diligence done on seven figure investments at our company and presentations to the board and expect that Ferry will exercise similar diligence in his recommendation on a 20M acquisition to his bosses. Ferry and his team should not have been winging things on free agents. A guy like Deng has been a known commodity that should have been very well briefed by the time this call took place.

[DrReality]

Don't think it would've made any difference if he owned it.  Talk on the radio is that he's safe from being fired..........but he may still resign.  Ambivalent about that.  Would there be more turmoil if he stayed or left? 

[Jody23]

I heard Zach Klein on XM86 this morning and he basically said that all of this is about Gearon's ego. He and his father can't stand Ferry because (as we all suspected) he's the GM and he's not their puppet. He went on to say that this situation will be messy going forward if all the current ASG aren't bought out.

[Jody23]

I would also add that Klein said Ferry wanted to talk about this publicly from the jump, but the someone was advising him not to which Klein stated was bad advice. I think Ferry is taking more heat for this than deserved, but I believe this is the way the league wants it. They don't want any negative controversy around the Cavs which is where the heat should be since the report came from them.

[AHF]

Not remotely surprised about Gearon.