Getting rid of Danny Ferry: The worst move the Atlanta Hawks could have made
The Atlanta Hawks are coming off a season in which they won 43 games and were knocked out in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. The team has been in steady decline since winning 60 games in the 2014-15 season and reaching the Eastern Conference Finals. No one seemed to notice much when it happened, but this decline took form when the team decided not to bring back general manager Danny Ferry after his controversial and racially offensive comments during the summer of 2015.
Ferry was the mastermind behind the Hawks 2014-15 season, with a number of great moves in the years leading up to what became a Hawks team that claimed the best regular season record in the Eastern Conference.
Ferry began by trading Joe Johnson and his contract to Brooklyn, when he was being grossly overpayed in Atlanta on a max deal. He then chose the next offseason to not resign Josh Smith, who would go on to ink a huge deal with Detroit before being so bad they chose to cut him just over a year into it. He signed Paul Millsap for only $9.5 million a year, who has gone on to be the Hawks best player the last four seasons and an All-Star in all four. He was also responsible for bringing Kyle Korver, Demarre Carroll and head coach Mike Budenholzer to the Hawks.
Just before the Hawks great 2014-15 season began, questionable comments by Ferry during a conference call about free-agent Luol Deng were made public. Ferry told Hawks ownership Deng “has a little African in him.” This caused some outrage around the NBA and in the Atlanta community, leading to Ferry being suspended indefinitely.
Ferry was forced to watch what he built from afar during the 2014-15 season, and after the Hawks were bounced in the Eastern Conference Finals, the question was raised as to whether the franchise would let him reassume his role.
Ferry may have made a mistake, but he was apologetic and clearly deserved his job back based off the work he had done in Atlanta. However, reported disagreements among Ferry with part-owners and Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins did not help his case. A 2015 story by SB Nation highlighted this.
I truly believe those that had it out for Ferry in Atlanta did everything they could to keep him from reclaiming his job. It is sad that egos had to get in the way of doing what was best for the Hawks and the city of Atlanta.
The Hawks appointed coach Mike Budenholzer to the general manager position as well in the summer of 2015, which has not turned out all too well. The Hawks had many decisions to make this past offseason, most notably what to do with free-agent and long-time Hawk Al Horford. They decided to sign Dwight Howard to a big deal, while Horford left for Boston. Dwight Howard was benched in crunch time throughout this year’s playoff series against Washington, and it looks like the move is already failing at the end of year one.
One can only wonder what Ferry would have done with Horford. There were also questionable moves like trading point guard Jeff Teague and overpaying Kent Bazemore.
Ferry now has a role in the New Orleans Pelicans organization, while the Hawks just hired a new general Manager, Travis Schlenk, from Golden State.
Who knows how much would have gone differently if the Hawks had held onto Ferry, but there is no doubting they made a mistake in deciding not to.
