Adam Silver still supports Danny Ferry

While the ground appears to be giving way beneath Danny Ferry's feet it doesn't appear that the NBA is going to be pushing for his dismissal anytime soon. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told USA TODAY's Sam Amick that he doesn't think that Ferry's comments should warrant him losing his job.

"The discipline of a team employee is typically determined by the team, and in this case the Hawks hired a prestigious Atlanta law firm to investigate the circumstances of Danny Ferry's clearly inappropriate and unacceptable remarks," Silver said. "In my view, those comments, taken alone, do not merit his losing his job."

Silver maintains his belief that Ferry's comments weren't his own and were those of several background and scouting reports accumulated by Ferry from outside sources.

"It's a question of context ... These words, in this context, understanding the full story here, the existence of the scouting report, the fact that he was looking at the scouting report as a reference when he was making these remarks, what I'm saying is - and frankly my opinion - is that this is a team decision in terms of what the appropriate discipline is for their employee. But if I'm being asked my view, I'm saying that, based on what I know about the circumstances, I don't think it's a terminable offense."

Yahoo's Adrian Wojnarowski painted a very ugly picture of the conference call conducted about Ferry Wednesday afternoon. In that report, Wojnarowski maintains that in the context of the transcript, it appears that Ferry was inserting his own interjections on the call and not reading from a scouting report.

"Ferry's clinging to the story that the racially charged words belonged to someone else - that a riff connecting Africans to a con man stereotype weren't his words at all. In context of the transcripts, it appears that those had been Ferry's own interjections on the call, somehow supporting the intel culled outside of the Hawks."

So questions remain, but at least for the near future, it looks like Ferry will remain in his post with the Hawks.