With Danny Ferry and the Atlanta Hawks, many unanswered questions remain

After a week of Michael Gearon outing Danny Ferry after Bruce Levenson revealed his wrongness in many terrible ways, what's left of the Atlanta Hawks got a boost when NBA Commissioner Adam Silver voiced his support of Ferry in the role he currently holds, GM of the Atlanta Hawks, standing by the reports that Ferry was reading a scouting report and Ferry's prior good behavior.

That's hard to believe given the rancid farce of a scouting report Ferry willingly read aloud in the context of discussing Luol Deng. Silver references that Ferry was only reading a scouting report, but the transcript received by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports doesn't read like a stilted scouting report but more like the free tongue of an individual speaking his mind.

Yet, that's what Steve Koonin and Adam Silver believe, so why shouldn't I? Lord knows I want to believe. I want to pick up where the Hawks left off in May, with change in the image and culture on the court definitely taking shape and winning was very much in the cards. I want the competence of Danny Ferry as GM and Mike Budenholzer as coach. It's been nice being the savvy franchise for a change.

So why wouldn't I believe? Why is there still nagging doubt in my mind? It's because there are still many questions I have that haven't been explained, hindering me from releasing the sense that there is still more truth left uncovered.

Who was this mystery scout?

Why hasn't this scout or scouting service been named as the purveyor of this crap? It seems odd that it's being treated as a randomly generated scouting report from a 1950's NBA 1K game, as if no human spit it out, just a reject from the Batman Batcave computer. It would be good service to reveal this in order to put a different face to those very insensitive words about Deng. Why protect this source at the cost of your own franchise and in your role as GM? It doesn't make any sense.

The reason maybe that there is no scout or scouting service to name. Maybe the scouting report was dreamed up to protect Ferry and his march, as Woj put it in his piece, directly into a foolish, ignorant riff of African stereotypes. If not this, then where did it come from?

Why is there only a partial transcript?

Woj said Yahoo! obtained only a partial transcript, conveniently leaving in the parts that indict Ferry. Where is the rest and what does it tell us about the tenor of the call and Ferry's remarks? Does the full transcript exonerate Ferry? Does it name the scout or scouting service? Or is it just the other free agents being discussed and did they have any remarks like this coming from this scouting service?

Where is the audio Gearon referenced in his memo?

Clearly there was audio, as Gearon himself mentioned in his memorandum to Levenson in June. Gearon also said he played it for other parties and something had to be present in order to get a transcript.

So where is it? Isn't it inevitable that this too shall come forth? If we've learned anything in sports it's that, in this day and age, everything comes to light eventually.

Is the audio not strong enough evidence for Gearon to get Ferry out and so that the purpose of his own memo and a partial transcript being leaked to the press? That he needed to frame it the right way to make Ferry look the worst?

That's a lot of question marks! This is why there is no clear answer to me in this incident with Ferry. I thought it was over earlier in the week and the Woj news would have seemed to seal the fate, but many have jumped in to save Ferry including, now, the commissioner. Still seems like there are so many reasons why Ferry won't be here, but it looks like we'll need some more answers to see clearly one way or the other, leading to one last question:

Who is going to ask these questions and demand the answers?

The paper of record in Atlanta, the AJC, has been silent in terms of reporting, leaving the breaking news to Zach Klein, Woj and everybody else. Jeff Schultz nailed his opinion piece, but that's no different than myself, Tom Ziller or anyone else reacting. Who is going to demand these answers from the organization?

If the questions never get asked, they'll never get answered and then the fuzziness that surrounds Danny Ferry and the scouting report from Scout X will remain, making it hard to fully swallow what the team is feeding all of us and leaving us not ever knowing the truth.