The unfortunate tale of Danny Ferry and his racial stereotyping of Luol Deng in a free-agent conference call with his bosses would be simple if it weren't so complicated.

Was Ferry, for now still the general manager of the Atlanta Hawks, reading or summarizing the thoughts of others when he said that Deng, a native of the Sudan, has "got some African in him?" Does the origin of the slur matter?

Does it matter that the remarks were made in a setting that cannot accurately be described as either 100 percent public or 100 percent private? Ferry didn't connect Deng's racial heritage to the description of him as a duplicitous "lawyer in the locker room" in a setting, such as, say, a speech to sponsors or season ticket holders. But he made it in the workplace, in the presence of co-workers and superiors, including members of the ownership group. The audio, obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is an uncomfortable listen, to say the least.

In any case, damage was most certainly inflicted on the Hawks organization and on the public reputations of Ferry and the team. As such, the franchise announced Friday that Ferry was taking an indefinite leave of absence to "learn about his mistakes" and "begin the long process of personal healing," according to CEO Steve Koonin. Coach Mike Budenholzer took over the team's basketball operations, and Koonin said the team is committed to hiring a chief diversity officer.

Still, the public fallout has been mixed. Michael Gearon Jr., a minority partner who'd had it in for Ferry almost since the team hired him as GM in June 2012, has called for his ouster. Gearon Jr. did so in an internal memo that launched a team-wide investigation, which ultimately deposed controlling owner Bruce Levenson over the discovery of a racially derogatory email about the Hawks' inability to attract white fans. It's quite possible that none of this would have come to light if the Hawks' ownership group hadn't been so divided and dysfunctional.

"At the heart of this dispute is an unfortunate disagreement amongst owners," Koonin said in the statement released by the team.

But NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who five months ago banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for life over racially derogatory comments recorded in private, told USA Today this week that Ferry should not be fired. 

"In my view, those comments, taken alone, do not merit his losing his job," Silver said.

Masai Ujiri, an African native who is president of the Toronto Raptors, wrote eloquently on the topic in an op-ed piece for the Globe and Mail. An excerpt:

I have no idea what is happening in the Atlanta Hawks organization, but I do know how the scouting world works. We all have different ways of sharing information about players and different vocabularies to do so. It crossed a line here.

That said, we are all human. We are all vulnerable. We all make mistakes.

You discover a person’s true character in their ability to learn from and then move on from those mistakes. One of the truly important things we must learn is how to forgive.

Danny’s mistake will remain tied to him for a long time. What he’s said can’t be unsaid, but we must measure his heart. If he has made an honest, isolated error, he should forgive and move on.

There has long been a macho, fraternity-like, above-it-all mentality in professional sports. As Bill Parcells used to say about the NFL, "It's not a game for the well adjusted." But the speed and relentlessness of the information business have shed a blinding light on the locker rooms, practice facilities, management offices and owner's suites of the sports teams we shower with our hard-earned money and devotion. Trust me, this is the tip of the iceberg in terms of things you'd rather not see or hear if you insist on maintaining the blissful separation between your rooting interests and morality.

Think about it: Why do professional sports teams and leagues employ armies of public relations people? If you think it's to help the media do its job of getting to the truth, I've got a basketball team in Atlanta to sell you.

But here is the irony: The gossip-mongering TMZ culture that has begun to bring down sports figures and expose their flaws has actually been incubating inside the NBA culture for years. No one disputes that Ferry's characterization of Deng's ethnicity was indefensible. But think about why the team's basketball staff and owners were having a conversation about Deng's personality and character traits to begin with.

Much like the pay-by-the-scoop gossip media, NBA executives have been trafficking in rumor and clandestine reporting on players' private lives and tendencies for years.

According to multiple executives and scouts within the league, the realization occurred to NBA teams roughly in the early 2000s that they were investing millions of dollars in scouting college players and virtually none in scouting NBA players. Every team had advanced scouts who'd dutifully jot down the plays that the next opponent was running, but few, if any, had pro personnel departments dedicated to gathering every last tidbit of information about NBA veterans they might acquire via trade or sign as free agents.

Now, most teams have numerous people doing this dirty but necessary work.

The proliferation of pro scouting came at a time when less information about college players was available than ever before, as players stayed in school for at most one or two years. The draft was becoming a much riskier way to build your team. With this trend came the realization that the financial investment in draft picks was minimal compared to a big-ticket free-agent signing or franchise-shaping trade, either of which could make or break your franchise.

"Those decisions have decade-long ramifications versus what your second-round pick is," one scout said.

Over time, the emphasis shifted from typical information anyone could get by speaking with coaches and agents, who somehow always gave glowing reports, to more aggressive reporting tactics. Scouts and personnel men quickly learned that the real scoop would come from ball boys, equipment guys, teammates, various members of a player's entourage and even other scouts. (In case you're wondering, yes, media reporting on the NBA has evolved in much the same way.)

"All the GMs have their guys out there, and their job is to go get information," said another person who is an executive with a team. "It’s really extreme, but it's what is going on right now. That is the norm, it has to be done, and every team does it."

These tactics are now prevalent in college scouting as well. One NBA college scout said that it's common practice to casually interview students on campus or in the stands about a prospect's personal life and other character traits.

"They just tell you what they think; they give you information," the scout said. "... That kind of information is very important. You draft a kid that’s not involved in the right stuff and it comes back and haunts you." 

In short, people get fired over these decisions. So no longer is it enough to report back on a player's post moves on the left block or the range on his jump shot; anyone can watch those things at the office or on an iPad. When writing a report for your GM, you need to tell him what kind of teammate the player is ... whether he is high maintenance ... what his family situation and other relationships are like ... and yes, whether he is a "locker room lawyer," a term that is often included in scouting reports about players, whether they are black, white, Asian, European or otherwise.

Let's just say some of the sources of such information are less than pristine.

Above all, the golden rule of NBA scouting is: no surprises. But what is never done or condoned, according to two people who have been involved in the NBA scouting business for more than 30 years combined, is linking any of the character traits uncovered in the scouting process to the player's ethnicity. This is where Ferry's foray into modern-day NBA detective work went so badly awry.

"That's just stuff you don't talk about," one executive said.

So in describing what kind of investment Deng would be for the Hawks, Ferry didn't say a word about his wing defense or his offensive rebounding, or even what kind of fit he would be with the various talents on the roster or with the coaching staff. Instead, his scouting report -- prepared from multiple sources, including former teammates and yes, ballboys, according to a league source -- read more like a psychological profile filled with loosely verified gossip and innuendo. In this way, in the tabloid culture of the NBA and pro sports in general, it was no different than any other scouting report or, frankly, most of the sports coverage you read or watch on TV.

Ferry described Deng as conniving and self-absorbed; as a player who would leak stories to the media and deny it; and who would act one way in front of the coaches and another way behind their backs. To one scout consulted for this story, this was par for the course in an NBA scouting report; it read almost verbatim like a report he's heard about a prominent white player in past personnel meetings with his team.

Ferry, however, set off a scandal that toppled the controlling owner and may yet cost him his job by co-mingling the dirt dug up by his information guys with hurtful racial stereotypes about Deng's African descent. Those in the NBA who know Ferry cannot fathom why he did this. But only five months after Sterling was banned and a month after he was formally removed as the Clippers' owner, the calls for Ferry to lose his job have hardly been universal. 

It remains to be seen whether the Hawks' leadership -- current and future -- will be as forgiving as Silver and Ujiri. It is worth wondering if African agents such as Bouna and Makhtar Ndiaye will think twice before doing business with Ferry or the Hawks. (Neither responded to requests for comment Friday.)

For the league, so freshly initiated into its post-Sterling realities, the issue of whether to deal with racial insensitivity with firings or forgiveness is an important conversation that must be had.

But the practice that ultimately led Ferry down his fateful path -- the relentless pursuit of every shred of information, be it real, rumor or gossip -- is here to stay in the sport's culture. The audience, both inside and outside the walls of NBA teams, demands it.