Report: Budenholzer to become Hawks' president, Ferry out

The Atlanta Hawks plan to add the duties of team president to coach Mike Budenholzer's workload, according to Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski.

The move would allow the Hawks to part ways with general manager Danny Ferry, who spent the past season on leave from the team after racially insensitive comments he made about Miami Heat forward Luol Deng came to light.

The Hawks enjoyed the best season in franchise history during Ferry's absence, winning a team-record 60 games and advancing to the Conference Finals for the first time since 1970.

Budenholzer, named NBA Coach of the Year in his second season on the job, will take on the duties of both president and head coach, with Wes Wilcox taking on the role of general manager, according to Wojnarowski.

In the wake of the report Thursday morning, neither Budenholzer or Wilcox had yet been informed of the leadership changes, according to a source of Chris Vivlamore of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who noted they can only speak publicly about the changes after the official takeover of new ownership. The Hawks are in the process of being sold to a group led by private equity billionaire Tony Ressler, pending approval by the NBA Board of Governors on June 24.

The Hawks' current management team will hold a conference call Friday to approve a buyout for Ferry, according to ESPN's Kevin Arnovitz. The responsibility for that amount will reportedly be assumed by the team's current ownership group, led by Bruce Levenson.

Levenson himself was the writer of a racially-charged email from 2012, in which he opined that black Atlanta fans had "scared away the whites."

Ferry became the Hawks general manager in 2012, after holding the same position with the Cleveland Cavaliers from 2005 to 2010.