DANNY FERRY

Introduction

Daniel John Willard “Danny” Ferry, an American retired basketball player and former general manager of the Atlanta Hawks were born on October 17, 1966, at Hyattsville, Maryland. He also served in the Basketball Operations for the San Antonio Spurs of the (NBA) National Basketball Association as a Vice President. He began playing basketball in his early days at DeMatha Catholic High School in Maryland and excelled in high school level with Morgan Wooten as his coach. Before his committing to Duke University, Ferry was one of the most highly recruited high school seniors in the entire nation and also had earned the Prep’s Magazine prep Player of the year in 1985. Due to his extraordinary talents on a basketball court such as superb outside shooting, strong rebounding abilities, full court vision (few among several others), Ferry was considered as one of the most celebrated basketball athletes around the entire world. His best work was seen during his high school days in 1985 and his days Duke University in 1988-89. The All-American had led the Duke Blue Devils to the three Final Four appearances and also set many records for the team earning him also numerous national player of the year awards. After drafting into the NBA in 1989 as the second overall draft, Ferry went on to spend the majority of his sports career with the Cleveland cavaliers, where went on to become the team’s all-time leaders in the game as he led 723 games only to be surpassed by Zydrunas IIgauskas on December 2, 2009. Ferry remains one of the top basketball players in the history of Duke University and is ranked among top 50 of Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) men’s basketball player of all time.

Appearance and Personal Life

Danny is currently 49 years old and stands 6 feet and 10 inches tall. He got married to Tiffany Ferry at 1955. He has a very happy married life with five children Hannah, Grace, Sophia, Lucy, and Jackson. There have been never any proof or even a rumor about any dispute in his married life. His present net worth is expected to be around 15 million dollars. He has an active presence in social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others and has quite a following in it. The ferry is a board member for Playing for Peace, a non-profit organization that uses basketball to unite and educate kids from around the globe.

College Career

Ferry attended the Duke University and during his time at Duke, he played basketball for the university for over four seasons. His best works at his college career were that he helped to lead the Blue Devils to the final four in 1986, 1988 and 1989 which takes him winning the MVP award for the east Regional twice. He also set some records for Duke University. Some of his records include Duke’s all-time single game scoring record (for scoring 58 points against Miami on December 10, 1980), the only player to be in Top 10 of Duke’s prestigious all 3 categories (ranked 6^th in career points, overall 8^th in career rebounds and 7^th in career assists). His other achievement during his college days were he became the first player to Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) history to collect more than 1,000 points (1,000 rebounds and 500 in his collegiate career) and won several national Player of the Year awards. Some of these awards were Naismith College Player of the Year, College Player of the Year for USBWA (Oscar Robertson Trophy) and UPI player of the Year. His greatest honor was yet to come, as in 2002 Ferry was named to the ACC 50^th Anniversary men’s basketball teams honoring 50 greatest player in ACC history. Due to his success and achievement at Duke University, Ferry is considered as one of the greatest player of all time in the history of Duke University.

Professional Career

After leaving college, Los Angeles Clippers drafted Ferry in the 1^st round as their second overall draft of the 1989 NBA draft. He soon accepted the offer made by Italian league’s II Mesaggero (now Virtus Roma) because he didn’t want to play with the Clippers. Playing for the Italian club in 1989-90 season Ferry made the name for himself as he averaged 23 points and six rebounds per game leading the Italian club to the playoffs. The Clippers traded Ferry’s right to the Cleveland Cavaliers along with his colleague Reggie Williams in exchange for high-scoring guard Ron Harper on November 16, 1989, as Ferry has no intention to play for the Clippers.

On November of 1989, Ferry signed a 10 year guaranteed contract with Cleveland Cavaliers. Unfortunately for Ferry, he doesn’t live up to the hype and had a very decent career in his Cavs days and never became a star Cavs had hoped based on his outstanding performance in his Duke’s days. In 1995-96 season, the best season of Ferry for Cleveland Cavaliers came when he averaged 13.3 ppg. His decent performance continuous in his only left one other season where he averaged double figures. After departing ways with Cleveland Cavaliers, Ferry signed a contract with San Antonio Spurs as a free agent on August 10, 2010, accepting the role as a back off-the-bench shooter with the spurs. Ferry played through the 2003-03 season for the spurs.

Management Career

Ferry had quite a successful management career if the recent controversy about the racist comments didn't surround him. Ferry’s official management career begins on 2003 shortly after retiring from active competition, when he signed to work at the middle management level with the Antonio Spurs. He stays with Spurs for 2 years and eventually signed up with Cleveland Cavaliers to a five-year contract with whopping 10 million dollars for 5 years. Ferry spends 5 years (2005-2010) and 5 season serving Cavaliers at its management level. Ferry began his management tenure with a Cavaliers overseeing a series of less than optimal transactions. He had been credited with bringing the superstar player LeBron James and a smart and creative head coach Mike Brown at the team which in turn helped the team to flourish so much and made a series of serious postseason run in the beginning of 2006. The trio combination of Ferry, Brown and Dan Gilbert (majority owner of Cavaliers) started to add more talents on the roster in an essence to make the roster best in the world. They had been best known for acquiring one-time All-Star guard Mo Williams, former All-Star Shaquille O’Neal at center, starting shooting guard Anthony Parker, Leon Powe, former All-Star Antawn Jamison and re-signing veteran center Zydrunas IIgauskas between the year 2008-2010. The trio’s strategy and their personal shuffling paid off in the year of the 2008-09 season when Cleveland not just won its first Central Division title since 1976 but also for the first time ever they finished with the best record in the Eastern Conference but as well as the league overall. The same success repeats for the 2009-10 season when Cavaliers won the NBA’s best record for the season consecutive season. Also in 2007 Cavaliers advanced to the final of NBA, marking the franchise’s first and only trip to the NBA finals. Ferry’s run as the manager came to an end on June 4, 2010, when it was announced that the Cavaliers and Ferry have decided to part ways. Although Ferry had one month left on his contract, The Cavaliers went 272-138 under Ferry.

In late August, he accepted the offer made by Spurs to return to the company as the vice president of basketball operations. In this position, Ferry oversaw the team’s player personnel, coaching, officiating, on-court policy and procedures, as well as scheduling. The tenure between the Spurs and Ferry ended on 2012 as Ferry decided to reprise the role of General Manager of the team for Atlanta Hawks. Ferry joined the position as the president of basketball operations and general manager of Atlanta Hawks On June 25, 2012. Ferry joined the Atlanta Hawks with 22 years of experience as both a player and front office executive. As a president of the Basketball operation and General Manager, Ferry’s main duties were to maintain basketball operations, including coaching, player personnel, contract negotiations and salary-cap management in. During his 3 years run as a general manager and president of the basketball operation at hawks, the team was riding high with 60 games win and 4 players placed on All-Star in one season. His run with Atlanta Hawks ended due to the controversy of racism as Ferry makes racist comments which are considered as culturally insensitive about the Miami Heat forward Luol Deng. Currently, he has been working for Pelicans as a special advisor role as of June of 2016.

Controversy

During his run with Atlanta Hawks, Ferry was caught in a major controversy regarding the racism June of 2015. The controversy arose with the release of an audio recording of a conference call with ownership in which Ferry was heard repeating culturally insensitive comments when reading a scouting report about Miami Heat forward Luol Deng. He was heard saying (he got some African left in him) about the Luol Deng badly hurting the African-American heritage of the player. Following the incident, Hawk’s co-owner Michael Gearon Jr. had called Ferry to either resign or be dismissed. On September 9, 2015, Hawk’s CEO, Steve Cronin announced that they are not going to dismiss Ferry instead they are preparing to go for disciplinary charges for Ferry. A few days later Ferry thus apologizes to Deng and other players and decided to leave the franchise so he asked for an immediate, indefinite leave of absence from his duties thus officially stepped down as general manager of Hawk and was approved immediately. After the incident, the law firm hired by the Hawk’s team Alston and Bird LLP conducted 19 interviews and reviewed the contents of more than 24,000 emails and found no evidence that Ferry’s comment on Deng was motivated by bias. The law firm concludes that at the conference call, which occurred on June 6 of 2014, Ferry characterized the Deng as a player who (has a little African in him) was not due to the motivated bias but from a scouting report Ferry was reading prepared by the third party. Ferry himself revealed that Deng was willing to talk to him and he shows lots of dignity and forgiveness to him. After his release from Hawk’s Ferry and his team agreed to a buyout contract made by Hawks that will pay Ferry more than the remaining balance on the final three years of the contract.

Awards and Achievements

At the time when Ferry was general manager and an active competitor, he got many awards and achievements. Some of his achievement are summarized below.

·         In 1989, Naismith College Player of the Year

·         In 1989, Player of the Year for USBWA

·         In 1989, College of the Year for UPI

·         In 1988, Consensus First Team All-American

·         In 1988. Consensus Second Team All-American

·         2 times ACC Athlete of the Year for 1988-89

·         Silver medalist in the 1987 Zagreb Summer Universiade Men’s Basketball.

Reception On Basketball Community

Danny Ferry is a very respected name in the basketball history of USA. He is regarded as a great mind off basketball both in the field and at the management levels. (Danny’s experience insight and achievement will be a welcomed and his addition to the Pelicans will be great, as we continue our quest to improve the team). This is the statement from Pelicans about the versatility of Ferry. Also, the other company like Spur, Cleveland Cavaliers, and Atlanta Hawks acknowledge Ferry both as a competitor and manager. They agree that they had  pretty much successful years when Ferry was associated with their organizations. Ferry’s years as an active competitor in the University of Duke were considered as legendary by many as the school assumed him to be the great basketball player in the entire history of School. He had the every right to be called as the great mind in basketball as he showed his awesome creativity and worked very hard to flourish his talent on both as an active competitor on the basketball court  and also at the management level . Ferry is very popular and respected  among the NBA community. Even in his dark days, when he was in controversy and his career was in jeopardy, he was backed by many prominent members of NBA community, including NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. This shows his position among the NBA Community.