Kyle Korver discusses Danny Ferry, Luol Deng controversy

Atlanta Hawks guard Kyle Korver spoke with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday and discussed the controversy surrounding the team. Korver was a part of Sunday's meeting between the team and Hawks CEO Steve Koonin.

On Luol Deng, Korver said that he has spoken with him and that he didn't think that Danny Ferry or anyone with the Hawks was racist.

Yeah we did speak. Luol is such a good guy. And he's been through so much in life that I don't really think this has really even phased him. He told me that he didn't think that Danny or anyone with the Hawks was racist. He said he was shocked when he heard what was said, but that sometimes things just slip out. It was pretty amazing, really. He just wants everything to move on. He wants to get back to basketball.

Korver also talked about Ferry and admits that he was not happy when he learned that he had been traded by the Bulls to the Hawks. Yet once he settled in, he was sold on what Ferry was trying to build in Atlanta so much so that he re-signed with the team the following summer.

My thoughts are, when I got traded to the Hawks, I didn't want to come here because all I knew was what I had heard, about bad culture and no fans and no excitement in the city. So I didn't want to come to Atlanta. At all. I was bummed to leave Chicago. But by the next summer, I chose to re-sign and come back to Atlanta. After a year of watching what Danny (Ferry) was doing and the people he was bringing in. Everything I saw, was so attractive to me and I really believed in it. I believed that he was going to turn things around. I saw that Atlanta was an incredible city, and that there was so much potential here to both raise my family and help build a great basketball culture.

Click through to read the rest of the interview. Korver is the first player to speak since the controversy began on Sunday.