To review the Hawks did a scouting report on Luol Deng.
Danny Ferry read the scouting report out loud and allegedly said this according to Yahoo.
“He’s still a young guy overall,” Ferry said, league sources with direct knowledge of the probe told Yahoo. “He’s a good guy overall. But he’s not perfect. He’s got some African in him. And I don’t say that in a bad way.”
Because of that comment, the Hawks emails and organizational memos were investigated and that is when they found the racial/business (depends on how you saw it) email that is making the owner sale his share of the team.
FYI, anytime you say “I don’t say that in a bad way” people are going to take it in a bad way.