Atlanta Hawks Discipline GM For Joking About Angry Black Women At Fan Event

After an internal investigation, Atlanta Hawks GM Wes Wilcox will be formally disciplined by the team over a joke he made last month at a fan event, per ESPN. As Deadspin reported last Friday, Wilcox was fielding questions from a group of fans and tried to ease tensions by saying, as one of our sources had it, “I know you guys may be angry with me, but I’m used to it because I have a black wife and three mixed kids, so I’m used to people being angry and argumentative.”

ESPN reports that the Hawks conducted an investigation from Dec. 27 to Jan. 9 and decided to discipline Wilcox, although they did not specify how. The NBA said they would not take independent action against Wilcox and left all disciplinary decisions up to the team.

The Hawks dispute the precise verbiage of Wilcox’s quote at the event, and say that Wilcox did not use the words “angry and argumentative.” (As Deadspin reported last week, a Hawks spokesman did not dispute the accuracy of our sources’ accounts of Wilcox’s comments.) Either way, Hawks chief diversity and inclusion officer Nzinga Shaw told ESPN that Wilcox made an “off-color statement” and that the team took his joke “very seriously.”

[ ESPN]