Allegations of racism and misogyny within the Phoenix Suns: Inside Robert Sarver's 17-year tenure as owner

[ShadowHawke]

You know who also did a great job of hiring lots of black women to work for them?

Slave masters.

NBA league and certain players are fine with slavery, as long as they are profiting from the relationship.

[SunsRIt]

You know who also did a great job of hiring lots of black women to work for them?

Slave masters.

NBA league and certain players are fine with slavery, as long as they are profiting from the relationship.

What the hell are you even taking about?

[ShadowHawke]

You know who also did a great job of hiring lots of black women to work for them?

Slave masters.

NBA league and certain players are fine with slavery, as long as they are profiting from the relationship.

What the hell are you even taking about?

Uyghars in China.

Also include the Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong Tweet.

[SunsRIt]

You know who also did a great job of hiring lots of black women to work for them?

Slave masters.

NBA league and certain players are fine with slavery, as long as they are profiting from the relationship.

What the hell are you even taking about?

Uyghars in China.

Also include the Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong Tweet.

So nothing in your home or that you consume is made in China? I would say a majority of the goods consumed in this country right now are made in China.

[ShadowHawke]

You know who also did a great job of hiring lots of black women to work for them?

Slave masters.

NBA league and certain players are fine with slavery, as long as they are profiting from the relationship.

What the hell are you even taking about?

Uyghars in China.

Also include the Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong Tweet.

So nothing in your home or that you consume is made in China? I would say a majority of the goods consumed in this country right now are made in China.

As little as possible.

As compared to:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/339 ... sted-there

[Shabazz]

Garvin seems like Sarver Jr. from what I’m seeing on Twitter. Can’t say about the racism/misogyny stuff, but from a micromanaging jerk standpoint, he’s the same.

But he's evolving as a person.

[JeremyG]

Couldn't Silver just appoint Jerry Colangelo as the interim governor?

[JeremyG]

Ya…if anything, it should have been whoever of the minority owners has the highest stake in the team. That or all the minority owners vote on who represents them. Even if they let Sarver vote, it would still be better than just letting him pick.

I mean Sarver is absolutely just going to be telling this guy what to do, right?

Jahm Najafi has the second highest stake in the team. Technically, even Sarver is a minority owner, since he only owns 35% of the team.

[TOO]

[Superbone]

Yeah, like that's going to do anything.

[Superbone]

https://theathletic.com/3596637/2022/09 ... unishment/

Hollinger: Adam Silver botched Robert Sarver’s punishment and news conference. He has a year to fix it

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Hollinger: Adam Silver botched Robert Sarver’s punishment and news conference. He has a year to fix it
John Hollinger
Sep 15, 2022
Adam Silver, you’re on the clock.

You have one year to get Robert Sarver all the way out of your league. If that wasn’t obvious in the immediate reaction to Tuesday’s announcement of a wrist-slap punishment for the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury owner’s compiled misdeeds, it sure as heck was following Silver’s disastrous news conference on Wednesday, which only added fuel to that fire.

It was, by some distance, the worst moment of Silver’s tenure as NBA commissioner, one that ironically began with him pulling the league out of a similar ravine when the Donald Sterling firestorm hit. In the time since, Silver has done an impressive job, especially compared to his peers. Silver outranks the NFL’s corporate sock puppet Roger Goodell and MLB’s bumbling crisis spelunker Rob Manfred, for instance.

Silver also led the way for pro sports at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis in March 2020, navigating the league through two pandemic years and pulling off the minor miracle of the NBA bubble. He’s managed to increase competitive balance, decrease some of the most craven tanking behavior, maintain labor peace and help keep the money machine rolling for everybody.

On camera, he’s calm and composed with the media, just personable enough while remaining businesslike and on-message. Off it, he’s likable and engaging. Through last week, his most notable mistake over the course of two Olympiads in charge had probably, in my estimation, been overreaching his office to help kneecap Sam Hinkie in Philadelphia.

All in all, it’s been a really good run. And then there was Wednesday …

Look, this was never going to be a career high point. Silver was out there to put lipstick on a pig, defending an indefensibly light punishment of a $10 million fine and a one-year suspension for Sarver as the result of a 36-page, 12,045-word report conducted for the NBA by the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. In it, more than 100 individuals detailed crude, racist, sexist and/or bullying acts by Sarver during his tenure with the Suns and the Mercury. (The word “illegal” also would seem to apply to a not-insignificant subset of them, although this was weirdly glossed over in the report.)

My colleagues Sam Amick and David Aldridge have already taken turns dunking on the league’s grossly insufficient penalty, joining most of the NBA and WNBA worlds.

Thus, there was no chance of Silver “winning” this news conference. Instead, he needed to parry the predictable questions coming his way in a forgettable enough manner that it didn’t generate another news cycle, and then quietly work behind the scenes to get Sarver to sell the team.

Oopsie.

Normally at home in this environment, Silver stumbled over his words in some places, seemed unprepared for what should have been boilerplate questions and even dribbled into an own goal or two (we’ll get to that in a minute). It was as if Silver couldn’t go along with the bit because he didn’t believe in it.

That would be the one praiseworthy thing I could say about his performance.

It was amazing because he had 24 hours from when the league released its report on Sarver to read the room, and even presumably way longer from when he found out the ruling, and dayuuummm did he misread the room. He could have doubled down on Sarver while saying the punishment was what it was and hinting that political realities kept it from being worse. Instead, he kept trying to justify why it shouldn’t be too bad, even with statements that were, shall we say, easily contested.

Silver started strong at first, seeming to distance himself from the conclusions in the law firm’s report that Sarver’s racist and sexist comments were “not the result of racial animus.” (I guess those comments just entered the atmosphere spontaneously.) This was the right move, and besides, any tire tracks on the firm’s back would have been a small price to pay for the tens of thousands of billable hours it racked up on this case.

But then, unbelievably, Silver reversed field faster than you can say “Barry Sanders” and began defending that same conclusion in increasingly less convincing ways.

“Remember, while there were these terrible things,” Silver said, “there were also many, many people who had very positive things to say about (Sarver) through this process.”

After this brief detour through Stalin-could-actually-be-quite-charming territory, Silver launched into increasingly tortured efforts to differentiate Sarver’s behavior from the previous actions of Sterling that resulted in his banishment from the league. The two key sentences in a rambling 292-word answer to the question:

“And ultimately, we made a judgment, I made a judgment, that in the circumstances in which he had used that language and that behavior while, as I said it was indefensible, it’s not strong enough. It’s beyond the pale in every possible way to use language and behave that way, but that was wholly of a different content than what we saw in that earlier case.”

So … a different kind of beyond the pale?

Somewhere in there, Silver also booted an absolute golazo into his own net, insinuating that the rules were different for owners than they were for all the other employees of teams and leagues.

. @HowardBeck: "Why should there be a different standard for NBA owner than it would be for everybody who works in this league?"

Adam Silver: "There are particular rights here to someone who owns an NBA team as opposed to someone who is an employee."pic.twitter.com/iS4n5gII9v

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) September 14, 2022

While this was arguably the most honest moment of the presser, it also was enough of an eyebrow-raiser to require an, um, “clarification” from the league’s PR staff afterward.

Regarding the reaction to commissioner Adam Silver's comments today about team owners having different rights than employees, NBA spokesman Mike Bass offered this clarification: pic.twitter.com/xT8LyAejev

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 15, 2022

But the most notable fish story was the redemption tale the league tried to sell us: the idea that Sarver was remorseful about his comments and had somehow changed.

“I do believe Mr. Sarver clearly has evolved as a person over that 18-year period, and much of the behavior in question stems from much earlier in his tenure as an NBA owner,” Silver said.

C’mon now. Any evolving here still ends with Cro-Magnons living in caves in Gondwanaland. The allegations against Sarver dated from when he first took over in 2004, but as recently as 2021, he was doing this and, according to the league’s report, telling a crude story about oral sex at a Suns business meeting.

The tale of redemption ended with this whopper:

“Because, as always with respect to the investigation and what was pointed out in the investigator’s report is Mr. Sarver, hopefully, has acknowledged his behavior. So there may be some disagreement around the edges but it’s not really a factual dispute here. It’s not Mr. Sarver saying I never said.”

Um … #wellactually …. I mean … while he eventually, kinda sorta got around to admitting that maybe he did something wrong, Sarver played the “I never” card.

.@Malika_andrews with an important point on her show today: Robert Sarver’s initial statement about the allegations – in which he attacked the reporting from @Baxter that would be largely confirmed by the NBA – spoke volumes about his lack of remorse and shouldn’t be forgotten. pic.twitter.com/GImoHjTIwK

— Sam Amick (@sam_amick) September 14, 2022

While the NBA says Robert Sarver "cooperated fully with the investigative process," sources tell @Baxter and me that the Suns owner was unaccepting of idea he deserved a one-year suspension and $10M fine for his behavior. The punitive part of process became largely acrimonious.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) September 13, 2022

Overall, Silver’s performance had the impact of pouring gasoline on a brush fire. It wasn’t long before both the league’s most significant voice (LeBron James), the Suns’ most prominent player (Chris Paul) and the new executive director of the NBA Players’ Association (Tamika Tremaglio) weighed in:

Read through the Sarver stories a few times now. I gotta be honest…Our league definitely got this wrong. I don’t need to explain why. Y’all read the stories and decide for yourself. I said it before and I’m gonna say it again, there is no place in this league for that kind of

Like many others, I reviewed the report. I was and am horrified and disappointed by what I read. This conduct especially towards women is unacceptable and must never be repeated.

Mr. Sarver’s reported actions and conduct are horrible and have no place in our sport or any workplace for that matter.

Additionally, the investigation confirmed that Mr. Sarver's deplorable behavior did not just come to light in November 2021. In fact, the report indicated Mr Sarver's long history of inappropriate conduct, including racial and gender insensitivity, misogyny and harassment.

All issues that led to a toxic work environment for well over a decade.

I have made my position known to Adam Silver regarding my thoughts on the extent of the punishment, and strongly believe that Mr. Sarver should never hold a managerial position within our league again.

Fortunately, there is a silver lining to the giant cumulonimbus storm cloud that Silver spent his news conference seeding: that one-year suspension. That gives Silver a 12-month window to work behind the scenes twisting arms to clean up this mess. While he does have some direct experience in a similar situation after dealing with Sterling, it’s arguably new territory for Silver. Historically, this type of thing was former commissioner David Stern’s specialty, not so much Silver’s.

Nonetheless, this is a must-win for Silver. Sarver, positively, cannot roll into the Suns’ offices next September like everything’s fine and pick up right where he left off. (Also: If that wasn’t a bad enough look, remember that Sarver owns the WNBA’s Mercury, too.)

The dilemma is that Silver can’t force Sarver to give up the team, at least not without 23 other owners agreeing with him. It’s not clear he’d have the votes, for one; some of the league’s other closets are not so skeleton-free, after all, and those owners might wonder about what type of precedent they’re setting.

Also, keep in mind that Silver couldn’t even force Sterling to give up his team in 2014. All he could do was ban him for life. (Sterling’s wife, Shelly, swept up the pieces from there.)

Once we recall that Sterling wasn’t “kicked out” in quite the way people remember, the parallels with the Sarver case become more apparent. The commissioner can’t eject Sarver with the push of a button like he’s Dr. Evil, but public opinion can make it impossible for Sarver to continue. In a roundabout way, Silver’s disastrous news conference may ultimately help him reach that endgame more quickly and easily.

Unfortunately, it will likely be up to sponsors, minority owners, the media and even the players to do the league office’s dirty work from here, especially given the absence of smoking-gun audio. But it’s still easy to imagine how conditions could make a Sarver return impossible. What advertiser is going to associate its brand with Sarver’s Suns 12 months from now? How many fans will think twice about buying tickets? What about the players?

(Before I wrap this up, a big shout out to ESPN’s Baxter Holmes. Everyone working in the league knew that Sarver was bad news, but Baxter’s investigative work to document the pattern of toxic awfulness shed enough light that the league office could no longer look away and pretend it wasn’t there. And a big round of applause to Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press, Howard Beck of Sports Illustrated, and Tania Ganguli of The New York Times, whose tough questioning of Silver on Wednesday lay bare the glaringly deficient remedy chosen by the NBA.)

While Silver’s news conference was a disaster, he — unlike Sarver — still has a chance at genuine redemption. He’ll have to work behind the scenes to get this reputational stain off the league’s liability sheet by impressing on Sarver the impossibility of his continuing and canvasing for money guys to be ready with a big check when Sarver inevitably gets canceled.

But the clock is ticking, Adam. You have 364 days.

[JeremyG]

[Mori Chu]

Wow. That's a forceful letter. It seems like momentum is building toward a mass demand that Sarver sell his share of the team. I think players and sponsors and fans and others will all join in. Eventually Sarver may have no other practical choice.

[Split T]

Let’s go! Get him out of there. Problem is I imagine there are a lot of Sarver supporters in the ownership group. What would it take to oust him? Simple majority or what?

[The Bobster]

Let’s go! Get him out of there. Problem is I imagine there are a lot of Sarver supporters in the ownership group. What would it take to oust him? Simple majority or what?

I would assume its spelled out in the partnership agreement.

[ShadowHawke]

I agree with the letter. I do have questions.

Not sure how long he has had a stake in the Suns, seems at least 6 years or so, but were you so uninvolved, you had no idea about Sarver's behavior?

No one mentioned anything to you as the second largest stakeholder?

[Split T]

I honestly have no clue what involvement minority owners tend to have. Seems like he never really got along with Sarver, think it’s very possible he didn’t have anything to do with the day to day. I never heard of him until the story came out. Larry Fitzgerald was the only minority owner who’s name I knew.

[specialsauce]

Gambo mentioned they have been fighting for four years and Sarver has been trying to buy Najafi out

[Flagrant Fowl]

While I have no interest in becoming the managing partner...

I don't believe that for a second.

Everyone is behind him or whoever has some authority to get Sarver out of the organization, but don't lie to people.

[The Bobster]

While I have no interest in becoming the managing partner...

I don't believe that for a second.

Everyone is behind him or whoever has some authority to get Sarver out of the organization, but don't lie to people.

You're assuming a lot.