The racially insensitive remarks Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson wrote in an email were reportedly discovered during the course of an internal investigation into a scouting report on Miami Heat forward Luol Deng. ESPN reports the scouting memo, which supposedly contained "offensive and racist" remarks about Deng, led to an internal investigation being launched that ultimately uncovered Levenson's email from two years ago.
Levenson's announcement Sunday he would sell his majority share of the franchise was the result of an internal investigation launched at the behest of the team. The Hawks' internal investigation, however, apparently discovered Levenson's 2012 email by happenstance after originally being asked to look into a scouting report that contained racist remarks about Deng, whom the Hawks were considering signing as a free agent in June.
"A racially insensitive email written by Levenson more than two years ago came to light only after one of his co-owners called for an investigation because of something that was included in a potential free-agent target's background report that was read aloud by team general manager Danny Ferry, who did not fully edit the remark as he read it off the report, according to multiple sources," Brian Windhorst of ESPN wrote Monday. "... (Hawks CEO Steve) Koonin told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the Hawks held a meeting in early June to discuss potential free-agent targets. According to Koonin, Ferry cited a background report that included an 'offensive and racist' remark about a player."
Ferry read the remark aloud, which led to a Hawks' stakeholder calling for an internal investigation into why the remark was in the scouting report. It's uncertain what the remark was, but Koonin described it as "wrong" and something "not appropriate in any world but not a post-Sterling world."
Koonin didn't reveal who the player was in his interview with the Atlanta Journal Constitution, but ESPN reported it was Deng.
The Hawks hired an Atlanta-based law firm to conduct the investigation, which discovered Levenson's racially-insensitive email from 2012 discussing the team's fans. The team then notified the league office of the discovery, but before the league rendered any punishment Levenson announced he would sell his share.
Read more about Levenson's email HERE.
