Warriors co-owner uses 'hoodish' in email to team employees, says he meant 'Yiddish'
Golden State Warriors co-owner Peter Guber expressed regret to team employees late Monday for listing "hoodish" as a language he planned to learn in reply to an email commending the franchise for having five international players on this season's roster. Guber said he meant to type "Yiddish," and did not realize his mistake until it was pointed out to him by a Warriors official.
Guber's email, which was sent from his phone and obtained by Yahoo Sports, came after the NBA announced in a news release earlier Monday that the league's 30 teams will have a record 101 international players from 37 countries and territories on opening-night rosters for the upcoming season. Warriors director of media relations Raymond Ridder forwarded the league's release in an email sent through the franchise, saying, "The following is a great example of the growth of our league. There are 101 international players on NBA opening night rosters, which represents 22% of the league. We have five [5] international players on our roster (33%), which includes Andrew Bogut, Leandro Barbosa, Festus Ezeli, Ognjen Kuzmic and Nemanja Nedovic. We've come a long way…"
Guber responded to the email by writing, "I’m taking rosetta stone to learn Hungarian Serbian Australian swahili and hoodish This year. But it's nice."
Guber's initial email was sent throughout the franchise and construed as "offensive" by at least one team employee. Late Monday, Guber sent a follow-up email saying he mistakenly typed "hoodish" and regretted the error.
"Someone just brought to my attention that an email I responded to earlier contains the word 'hoodish,' which I don't even think Is a Word, and certainly not the one I intended to use," Guber wrote in the email. "I intended to type Yiddish. Either my mobile fone [sic] autocorrected or it was typed wrong. In any event I regret if anyone was unintendedly [sic] offended."
The incident comes roughly two months after Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson announced he is selling his stake in the Hawks after apologizing for racial statements he made in a 2012 email. Levenson's email was revealed after an internal investigation into comments Hawks general manager Danny Ferry made while reading from a scouting report about free-agent players in which Ferry described Miami Heat forward Luol Deng as someone who "has a little African in him." Ferry went on to say, "Not in a bad way, but he's like a guy who would have a nice store out front and sell you counterfeit stuff out of the back."
Ferry read the comments from a report prepared by someone else on a conference call with team owners and officials. He is on an indefinite leave of absence from the Hawks.
Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA and forced to sell the franchise after a recording was made public in April of him telling his reported girlfriend he did not want her bringing African-American friends to games. Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer purchased the Clippers from Sterling and his wife for $2 billion.
Guber is chairman and CEO of Mandalay Entertainment. He also is a co-owner of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Dodgers.
