Golden State Warriors' co-owner Peter Guber apologized for listing "hoodish" as a language he wanted to learn in an email to team employees. Guber said that he meant to type "Yiddish," and was not aware of the mistake until a Warriors' official brought it to his attention.
The email was sent to congratulate the franchise on having five international players on the opening day roster. The NBA announced early Monday that the league has a record 101 global players from 37 countries and territories.
Warriors' director of media relations, Raymond Ridder, passed the NBA's release on through the franchise, and said, "The following is a great example of the growth of our league. There are 101 international players on NBA opening night rosters, which represents 22% of the league. We have five international players on our roster (33%), which includes Andrew Bogut, Leandro Barbosa, Festus Ezeli, Ognjen Kuzmic and Nemanja Nedovic. We've come a long way..."
Guber wrote in response, "I'm taking rosetta stone to learn Hungarian Serbian Australian Swahili and hoodish This year. But it's nice."
Guber's email was considered "offensive" by at least one team employee. Guber, once notified, sent a follow-up email expressing regret over the mistake.
"Someone just brought to my attention that an email I responded to earlier contains the word 'hoodish,' which I don't even think Is a Word, and certainly not the one I intended to use," he wrote. "I intended to type Yiddish. Either my mobile fone [sic] autocorrected or it was typed wrong. In any event I regret if anyone was unintendedly [sic] offended."
The NBA is taking inappropriate internal communication amongst franchises much more seriously in the wake of Atlanta Hawks' owner Bruce Levenson's admission that he had made racially insensitive statements in a 2012 email.
Levenson's comments were made public following an internal investigation into remarks made by Hawks' general manager Danny Ferry. Ferry read from a scouting report about then free agent Luol Deng that described him as a person who "has a little African in him." Ferry continued, "Not in a bad way, but he's like a guy who would have a nice store out front and sell you counterfeit stuff out of the back."
Ferry is currently on an indefinite leave of absence from Atlanta.
