Micah Hart

ATLANTA (May 21, 2015) – Hawks forward DeMarre Carroll suffered a left leg injury with 4:59 remaining in the fourth quarter of last night’s game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. An X-ray was negative and an MRI revealed a left knee sprain. Carroll will be listed as questionable and his status will be updated as appropriate.  

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X-Rays on DeMarre Carroll's Leg Negative

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Hawks In the 2015 All-Star Game

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Hawks 2015 All-Star Saturday Night

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9 Reasons The Hawks Are For Real You Guys

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Horford, Hawks Drop Bulls At Philips

As part of the Hawks committment to the city of Atlanta and being a positive force for change in the community, the team recently made good on a promise to hire the sports world's first ever Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Nzinga Shaw. We recently caught up with Shaw, who previously served as SVP of Diversity &amp; Inclusion at Edelman, the world's largest public relations firm, to get a sense for what her vision is for the new position.

Nzinga Shaw: We define diversity &amp; inclusion as an environment in which differences are valued and integrated into every part of our organization’s operation. We are building a supportive culture where everyone can experience equity of opportunity for personal and organizational success. Our ultimate objective is for diversity &amp; inclusion to become a permanent institutionalized part of the way business operations are conducted on a daily basis.

Hawks.com: What do you feel is missing in most diversity strategies today?

NS: Most diversity strategies do not focus on infusing diversity at all levels of the organization, particularly in the senior ranks. In order to have a comprehensive diversity &amp; inclusion strategy, there must be broad-based representation of all employees at decision and policy making levels. In the past, companies relegated the diversity &amp; inclusion function under the human resources umbrella, limiting exposure and reach, and minimizing senior leaders’ level of accountability for success in this area. Now, we are learning that diversity &amp; inclusion can be a strategic partner to the talent development function, but can also serve as an important resource for revenue generation and external partnerships, but it must be championed and embodied at the top.

Hawks.com: What will you do to achieve those goals?

NS: In my role as the Chief Diversity &amp; Inclusion Officer, I will help our organization continue to rebuild trust and partnership in the Atlanta community, emphasizing civility, sportsmanship, and human decency in an effort to ensure that everyone can be a fan of the team, attend home games, and so that we can serve as a model for inclusion in the NBA. Specifically, I plan to partner with organizational leaders, community partners and emerging communities to build sustainable programs that leverage our strengths and establish our organization as an employer and partner of choice in the NBA.

NS: I have never owned or used an alarm clock in my entire life. All of my family and friends are astonished by my ability to wake up early every day without the use of a buzzer, cell phone, etc. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. Also, I have never been late to work or missed a flight due to oversleeping.

NS: I am inspired by amputees that have learned how to overcome their limb differences. In the past, I had a coworker that lost her arm due to an amputation after a horrible boating accident at the age of 17. Now, she is a spokeswoman who advocates for blood donations and she volunteers as a counselor for children with amputations or limb differences. Her story further reinforces the notion that something that can be perceived as a difference can be leveraged for professional and personal strength.

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Q&A With Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Nzinga Shaw

From: Bruce Levenson  To: Ferry, Danny CC: Foreman, Todd (ucg.com); Peskowitz, Ed (ucg.com)Sent:  8/25/2012 11:47:02 PM Subject: Re: Business/Game ops

1.  from day one i have been impressed with the friendliness and professionalism of the arena staff -- food vendors, ushers, ticket takers, etc.  in our early years when i would bring folks from dc they were blown away by the contrast between abe pollin's arena and philips. some of this is attributable to southern hospital and manners but bob and his staff do a good job of training. To this day, I can not get the ushers to call me Bruce yet they insist on me calling them by their first names.

2. the non-premium area food is better than most arenas, though that is not saying much.  i think there is room for improvement and creativity. Levy is our food vendor so we don't have much control but they have been good partners. i have wished we had some inconic offereing like boog's barbeque at the baseball stadium in balt.

3. our new restaurant, red, just opened so too early for me to give you my thoughts.

4. Regarding game ops, i need to start with some background. for the first couple of years we owned the team, i didn't much focus on game ops.  then one day a light bulb went off.  when digging into why our season ticket base is so small, i was told it is because we can't get 35-55 white males and corporations to buy season tixs and they are the primary demo for season tickets around the league. when i pushed further, folks generally shrugged their shoulders.  then i start looking around our arena during games and notice the following:

-- it's 70 pct black-- the cheerleaders are black-- the music is hip hop-- at the bars it's 90 pct black-- there are few fathers and sons at the games-- we are doing after game concerts to attract more fans and the concerts are either hip hop or gospel.

Then i start looking around at other arenas. It is completely different. Even DC with its affluent black community never has more than 15 pct black audience.

Before we bought the hawks and for those couple years immediately after in an effort to make the arena look full (at the nba's urging) thousands and thousands of tickets were being giving away, predominantly in the black community, adding to the overwhelming black audience.

My theory is that the black crowd scared away the whites and there are simply not enough affluent black fans to build a signficant season ticket base. Please dont get me wrong. There was nothing threatening going on in the arean back then. i never felt uncomfortable, but i think southern whites simply were not comfortable being in an arena or at a bar where they were in the minority. On fan sites i would read comments about how dangerous it is around philips yet in our 9 years, i don't know of a mugging or even a pick pocket incident. This was just racist garbage. When I hear some people saying the arena is in the wrong place I think it is code for there are too many blacks at the games.

I have been open with our executive team about these concerns. I have told them I want some white cheerleaders and while i don't care what the color of the artist is, i want the music to be music familiar to a 40 year old white guy if that's our season tixs demo. i have also balked when every fan picked out of crowd to shoot shots in some time out contest is black. I have even bitched that the kiss cam is too black.

Gradually things have changed. My unscientific guess is that our crowd is 40 pct black now, still four to five times all other teams. And my further guess is that 40 pct still feels like 70 pet to some whites at our games. Our bars are still overwhelmingly black.

This is obviously a sensitive topic, but sadly i think it is far and way the number one reason our season ticket base is so low.

And many of our black fans don't have the spendable income which explains why our f&amp;b and merchandise sales are so low. At all white thrasher games sales were nearly triple what they are at hawks games (the extra intermission explains some of that but not all).

Regardless of what time a game starts, we have the latest arriving crowd in the league. It often looks and sounds empty when the team takes the floor.

In the past two years, we have created a section of rowdy college students that has been a big plus. And we do a lot of very clever stuff during time outs to entertain the crowd. Our kiss cam is better done than any in the league.

We have all the same halftime acts that other arenas have but i question whether they make sense. people are on their cell phones during half time. i wonder if flashing on the scoreboard "$2 off on hot dogs during halftime tonight" just as the half ends would be a better use of our halftime dollars and make the fans happier.

We do all the usual giveways and the fans are usually their loudest when our spirit crew takes the floor to give away t-shirts. It pisses me off that they will yell louder for a t-shirt then for our players.

Our player intro is flat. We manufacture a lot of noise but because of the late arriving crowd and the fact that a lot of blacks dont seem to go as crazy cheering (another one of my theories) as whites, it is not great. Even when we have just returned from winnng four straight on the road, i am one of the few people in the arena standing and cheering when our team takes the floor. Bob has kicked around ideas like having the starters coming down aisles rather than off the bench during intros. Sounds cool but may highlight all the empty seats at the start of games.

Not enough of our fans wear hawks jerseys to games.  i have just begun to push for ideas like discount food lines for folks wearing jerseys, special entrances, etc. I think we need a committed and perhaps incentivized fan club. We need to realize atl is simply different than every other city. Just adopting nba best practices is not enough. we have to create our own.

I am rambling and could probably go on forever. If you have any specific areas you would like my thoughts on, let me know.

ps -- I have cc'd todd and ed so they can chime in with additional or different thoughts.