{"id":554932,"date":"2026-01-23T06:34:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:34:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/554932\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T06:34:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:34:30","slug":"i-have-a-black-wife-im-used-to-people-being-angry-and-argumentative-when-a-former-hawks-gm-got-in-trouble-for-a-racial-remark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/554932\/","title":{"rendered":"“I have a black wife…I’m used to people being angry and argumentative” – When a former Hawks GM got in trouble for a racial remark"},"content":{"rendered":"

What was supposed to be a fun and wholesome season-ticket holder event turned into a controversial incident when the then\u2013Atlanta Hawks<\/a>\u00a0general manager Wes Wilcox made a comment he later regretted.<\/p>\n

According to a report from\u00a0Deadspin<\/a>\u00a0back in January 2017, Wilcox dropped a racially charged joke after answering some tough questions from the event’s attendees. The report noted that Wilcox said he has\u00a0“a black wife and three mixed kids, so I’m used to people being angry and argumentative.”<\/p>\n

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The Hawks brass didn’t take Wilcox’s situation lightly. They immediately conducted an internal investigation and even imposed undisclosed discipline on Wilcox.<\/p>\n

The Hawks did what’s right<\/p>\n

While some of the attendees informed Hawks management that Wilcox didn’t exactly use the words\u00a0“angry and argumentative,”\u00a0Hawks and Philips Arena chief diversity and inclusion officer Nzinga Shaw explained why they had to reprimand Wes.<\/p>\n

“People that were in the room could make the assumption that he was using her race for the reason of the comments that followed,”\u00a0Shaw\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0ESPN.\u00a0“We certainly do not approve of this behavior and we are going to handle this manner internally.”<\/p>\n

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“We have a full understanding of what took place. We, as an organization, will get past it and hope to regain the trust of the community. This work will not stop,”\u00a0she added.<\/p>\n

For his part, Wilcox deeply regretted ever cracking that kind of joke. He apologized to the public, especially to Clarenton Crawford, the African-American who sent Hawks president Steve Koonin about the incident.<\/p>\n

“I made a self-deprecating comment at my own expense regarding my family, which is multi-racial,”\u00a0Wes said.\u00a0“This joke offended Mr. Crawford and his wife, and for that, I apologize.”<\/p>\n

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The NBA, on the other hand, allowed the Hawks to handle the situation and didn’t intervene.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t the first time in Atlanta<\/p>\n

Before Wilcox, former Hawks GM Danny Ferry\u00a0also made insensitive racial comments<\/a>\u00a0that ultimately led to his resignation. Back in 2014, Ferry reportedly described two-time All-Star Luol Deng as a player who\u00a0“has a little African in him,”\u00a0and\u00a0“a guy who would have a nice store out front and sell you counterfeit stuff out of the back.”<\/p>\n

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There was also an email from then-Hawks controlling owner Bruce Levenson stating that the Atlanta fan base was”overwhelmingly black”\u00a0and the\u00a0“black people scared away whites”\u00a0from attending live Hawks games.<\/p>\n

This incident prompted the Hawks to hire Shaw to spearhead the team’s aim to make the organization more diverse and racially sensitive.<\/p>\n

“It was a tumultuous time. We went through so much. It was awful and almost took us under,”\u00a0Shaw said.<\/p>\n

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Related: Stacey King says Steve Kerr’s issue with Jonathan Kuminga is personal and has nothing to do with his game or attitude<\/a><\/p>\n

The most controversial racial issue involving an NBA executive<\/p>\n

Apart from the Hawks, the Los Angeles Clippers also made headlines over a racial issue. Clippers owner Donald Sterling made racist comments, which were heard by the entire NBA community through a private recording.<\/p>\n

He wound up being banned by the NBA for life. As of late, the Sterling incident is considered arguably the most infamous and controversial case of racism in the NBA.<\/p>\n

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Related: Corey Maggette says he never experienced racism from Donald Sterling: “My checks were always on time”<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on Jan 22, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What was supposed to be a fun and wholesome season-ticket holder event turned into a controversial incident when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3776],"tags":[676,208,3874,7,75938,677,135,7914,6,75939,19103],"class_list":["post-554932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-hawks","tag-atlantahawks","tag-basketball","tag-controversial-incident","tag-hawks","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-luol-deng","tag-nba","tag-nzinga-shaw","tag-wes-wilcox"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115943025177489939","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}